//------------------------------// // 75 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “So you’re special talent is being able to communicate with just about any biological being? I and Wander have seen a lot of things like that, many unique and wondrous impossibilities are almost an everyday occurrence for us. Not to say the universe is perfect, but you do what you can to enjoy the view of traveling the stars.” The conversation of friend meeting friends had Sylvia talking with the pony like they were old buddies. Sure Fluttershy had likely seen a lot of bad things and even Sylvia herself personally has had a few bad experiences. “In the end I think it’s all worth it, but to each their own. The rigors of constant space travel and exploration aren’t exactly meant for the meek, but the experiences you get are rewards in their own way.” “Oh no, not again, why is it that I have to be both cold and wet!” The voice of Betina was heard and they saw the centaur zoom over both of them into the cool water where she created a huge splash. “I guess it’s true what they say, throw a quadruped into enough water and they won’t want to drink it.” Sylvia commented absently while scratching her side. Fluttershy put her hooves to her face and started giggling; the situation was rather silly to watch. “I’m okay, thanks for asking!” Betina slowly moved up the slope out of the bowl to where Fluttershy and Sylvia were while looking towards the ceiling with the flowing bowl of magma above them. There was a shivering LGM on her back, but he was still smiling despite looking a bit cold. As she got on to the lip of the ice and stone bowl she shook out her right hind hoof of excess water. “So what’s the hold up here and where’s your friend Roller?” “I got separated from him; Sylvia here says he’ll be along in no time. I’m waiting for my ride and she’s waiting for her rider. In fact you’re the first person we’ve seen to get here and you still have your rider.” After a moment Fluttershy’s good mood dipped a bit. “Is he okay?” “I am fine friend, though very cold. I suggest we proceed forward with the race while we still have an advantage.” At the LGMs words Fluttershy and Sylvia nodded. “Go on Betsy, I’ll be okay with Sylvia until Roller appears.” It didn’t take much for Fluttershy to notice Betsy was apprehensive about continuing on without being able to keep an eye on her. “Don’t worry I can take care of myself.” Betsy frowned and started trotting in place in indecision, after a moment she got a determined look and galloped for the exit on the stony side of the room. A minute after she left their view Wander gleefully slid out of the ice slide and fell upwards to the edge of the magma pool above them. “Wander; get back here so I can destroy you!” Hater wasn’t sliding along the ice, he was actually running on it sparks of dark green magic were firing of from his yellow gloves in the form of lightning. His black and red robes looked like they were on fire due in part to how much anger he was putting out to give it that appearance. “Um, aren’t you going to save him?” A panicked Fluttershy stood up as she asked this, she was bit confounded as to how Sylvia could look so laid back. Especially with Hater chasing Wander around on the ceiling above so close to the magma… or were they on the ceiling to Hater and Wander’s perspectives? How were they not being burned up by the heat? Okay her head hurts now, because gravity and physics didn’t make much sense here. Did Popstar exactly make any sense either, being as it was a world that was halfway between reality and that of dreams? “Nah, I’ll let Hater suffer a little longer before I bother rescuing him from Wander.” Sylvia leaned back putting her hands on the icy floor and watching as Wander and Hater ran around in circles along the ceiling. Every once in a while Hater would fire a blast of dark energy out of his hands and it always missed. “The show is worth the price of admission and I wouldn’t want to ruin Wander’s fun too soon.” Fluttershy thought it would be the other way around with Sylvia rescuing Wander from Hater, but after a moment of watching she sat back down. It became apparent that Sylvia was likely correct in needing to rescue Hater from Wander as he got bashed and smashed around trying to grab, hit or zap the little orange happy go lucky guy. It seemed to Fluttershy that Sylvia understood the situation better than she did. The orange fuzzy spoon shaped being just gleefully running all over the place full of energy, but never too close to the magma pool except for one moment. After a moment she bit her bottom lip and squeamishly closed her eyes. Hater released a frustrated pained screamed he shot straight into the middle of the water in front of Sylvia and Fluttershy after falling towards the small magma pool butt first. “Hey Sylvia, there you are!” Wander ran along the wall and down to Sylvia and Fluttershy, he saw the pony and his smile became that much bigger. It was like telling Pinkie Pie there was an all you can eat cupcake buffet opening nearby. “Aw, you made friend and I must say ma’am that you look so absolutely positively adorable!” “Why thank you… um…” Fluttershy was about to continue when she heard a revving noised that caused her ears to perk up. It was followed by an angry scream, looking up at the ice slide Roller shot down the wall leading from the slide narrowly missing getting a chunk of his carapace taken off by a swinging energy mace. The mace was wielded by none other than captain Herja who flew off the icy slide, instead of going down the wall like Roller did by clinging to the ice slightly better than he had previously. Herja continued to spin in the air as she fell until her mace struck the side of a floating Lord Hater’s skull. The resulting impact created a large explosion that sent the water in the bowl almost all the way up to the magma contained in the bowl on the ceiling. “Okay, now I’m feeling kind of sorry for Hater. Anyway, come on Wander we got a race to win!” It didn’t take Sylvia saying much for Wander leap onto her back while talking excitedly about all the things he saw in the icy cavernous areas of this place. The Zbornak darted off around the bowl and out the exit while listening to her friend go on about how exciting this place was. After a moment of waiting to see if Hater and Herja were okay, Fluttershy quickly got on Roller and sped off after Sylvia into a really warm long tunnel that had molten threads of magma throughout and the gravity was always pulling towards whatever part of the ground they happened to be on. - “It seems we’re down two thousand six hundred and ninety nine racers who have dropped out, became disqualified or have become too injured to continue!” The announcer had kept the Galactic Alliance informed as to what was going on in the race, they had some small robot drones keep track of the racers and to save some of them before they got killed by the obstacles. The number of racers was drastically getting smaller the further along the track they went. “Now that some have left the icy side of the zone, they are now entering the burning portion of the place where if you aren’t swift you’ll definitely get hot foot! Make that two thousand seven hundred folks… ooh that one has got to hurt, let’s watch a replay of that one!” - Roller’s tire felt like it was melting and the heat was oppressive. He didn’t mind the cold, the cold was okay. The heat was a different problem; it was sapping his energy quite badly. He could hear Fluttershy squeaking in fear as they shot off of a ramp through a ring of molten rock all around them. If it weren’t for the ice along the track keeping things cool, the convection alone would have been a bit too much for the both of them. The ramps along the track that sent them through the air at center of the tunnel made for some quick relief as it was colder in than center of the tunnel and hotter along the flooring of the tunnel. There were also many branches to this tunnel; some had fewer ramps than others so that meant the longer you were in those passageways the hotter it got, as the center of the tunnel after going off a ramp was much cooler they went for the ones with the most ramps they could get. No matter what branch they took Fluttershy noticed that the routes all kept converging back together and wondered when that would end. They were going higher and higher as if they were traveling upwards. The tube no matter what portion you were on, the gravity was always pressuring them to the ground or towards the rivers of magma below it. They swerved around upside down and launched off a ramp high enough to flip right side up again before hitting the rocky ground again. Her suit was protecting her from the heat somewhat, but it wasn’t doing too well as fire and heat were big problems for it. Roller revved loudly as he aimed for another patch of ice and spun his tire in place for a bit to cool down. The heat was beginning to affect him badly and he was one of the tougher creatures in the race. The star shots he fired earlier had taken a bit out of him, but he was still mostly okay to keep going. A Wheelie never stops for much once they get moving and he wasn’t about to let a little thing like heat take him down. “Are you okay Roller?” It had to be asked because Fluttershy knew Mr. Wheel must have been getting heavily exhausted in this heat. She was thankful that no matter their orientation thanks to how the gravity worked here, she wasn’t getting sick from changing from ceiling to floor to avoid falling into the small rivers of magma that lined every branching path they went through. They swerved through a serpentine pattern and followed the rockier part of the floor to avoid the heat as it swept a spiral around the tunnel they were in. Roller made what amounted to a grunting noise and continued onwards despite how hot everything was getting. The flooring of the branching tunnel they were in was becoming narrower and the magma was becoming more and more pronounced all around them, things started growing unbearably hot. After a point the floor suddenly swerved awkwardly forcing them to go through a loop in an odd hairpin turn manner and after that they saw open space. They had shot out over the racetrack having escaped the heat and now they were falling upside down. Mr. Wheel quickly reoriented to take the brunt of the impact and hit the track roughly while making loud squealing noises. He started to breath roughly, after a moment he felt Fluttershy caressing his carapace softly. He tried to keep going for her, but he started squealing in pain from the attempt to keep pushing himself forward. “Roller please, you have to stop!” Fluttershy was worried about those noises he was making, which in general meant that Roller was in pain or that something was wrong with him. It hurt her ears and her heart to hear him in pain. Looking back at the rock wall, she saw there were a lot of glowing holes; it seemed all of the tunnels came out pointing at the track. She wondered if Sylvia and Wander made it out of that safely. Roller did stop and shuddered as he came to a rest next to a sweaty looking Betina. As he did this Fluttershy took a moment to pull out some water, she proceeded to pour it on Roller and her suit as it had almost entirely become a sickly brown color. He whined at Fluttershy about not wanting to stop while the Rhizome suit she wore slowly went back to its healthy green, pink and yellow colors. “Yeah, I know the feeling. Not going to complain about being cold and wet anymore.” Betsy stood up on her four hooves from her sitting position and wiped some sweat from her head with a hand. The LGM looked perfectly fine on her back, most likely because his home world sometimes had a muggy atmosphere. Besty cantered a small circle testing her legs out. “Okay, I’m good to go again little green dude. I’m glad to see you made it out of there alright Fluttershy. Wander and Sylvia already took the lead back; that Zbornak is made of some stern stuff. Without my ranger training I don’t think I would have gotten this far.” “I still have a few bumps and bruises from those ice tunnels. I’ll count to sixty and then we may continue. Until then you are not to push yourself or move mister, do you understand me?” As they sat there with Fluttershy slowly counting away the seconds after Roller revved his understanding at her stern tone, several other racers had went past them onto the next part of the racetrack. Some of the racers that had come out had been on fire; she winced at the fact that they weren’t lucky enough to be able to continue after rolling around on the track to put out the flames. Despite Roller’s whining that he was okay and raring to go Fluttershy was doing this to make sure he was rested enough to continue. “Fifty nine, sixty, okay, you can…” Roller shot off with a blur cutting Fluttershy off as she had to hold on for dear life. His tire was shooting up yellow sparks as he made his way to catch up with the other racers. He was determined to not to be called slow and he was rested enough to put on some speed. They soon came upon the next obstacle when the track ended leading to shifting rainbow colors on what looked to be six strange looking parallel rails. Roller aimed for the middle of the right three rails. “That doesn’t look very safe.” It was all Fluttershy had to say about it before they hit the fifth rail and started to move along it at an increased speed. As the rail went along, Fluttershy’s eyes widened at the sight of what looked like shooting stars and fireworks exploding in the distance which brought her eyes to the two large glowing orbs. They were close to the finish, the two orbs was the sign that you were near the end of the race. The race was said to always end the same way, by passing between those two orbs. Roller suddenly leapt to the rail on his left avoiding the jaws of Herja’s ride as it snapped at Fluttershy’s tail. The lizard creature was grinding along using two of the rails to place its legs, whereas he only needed the one rail to grind along. “You think you and your exceedingly ridiculous mount can continue to make a fool of Herja, well I will show the both of you!” A Valkyran like Herja was someone Fluttershy was beginning to wish she hadn’t met. After everything Herja or her mount had been through, they still looked perfectly healthy and unscathed if only slightly tired. “I don’t really mean to make a fool of you.” It was Fluttershy’s honest opinion at least; Herja spent most of the time doing that to herself. Herja was more of a grey area to Fluttershy being that she didn’t seem very evil, but she wasn’t very good or friendly either. Their culture was violent and had different moral codes as that’s just who they were. Even Fluttershy herself wasn’t innocent of being violent when the situation warranted it. “It just happens.” Herja obviously did not like that as an answer as she made her beast lift a leg and tried to claw at Roller who bounded out of the way to the left again. The lizard moved over following the wheel so Herja could attack Fluttershy personally, only when she went to swing her mace it was shot out of her hand by a blaster round and went sailing off into the void of space. She screamed in frustration as she didn’t see who just did that to her so she could proclaim revenge on them. - Quite a fair distance on ahead but still on the rails at around seventh place, Betsy smiled while holstering her blaster as she hopped to a different set of rails to bypass another racer. Her hooves skidded along the rails without injury, the rails seemed slippery yet they also seemed to hold on to whoever was riding them. The six rainbow rails were pretty straightforward part of the race and she had gotten a clean shot off on the Valkyran attacking Fluttershy. Depth perception problems her flank! They said she’d likely be a poor shot with only one eye and she was still proving them wrong to this very day. A one eyed species with depth perception wasn’t a load of malarkey, just highly uncommon. - Herja clamped both her hands onto her mount and was directing it to attack Fluttershy with an incredible ferocity that had the pony whimpering as Roller kept dodging out of the way by jumping to adjoining rails or speeding up temporarily. After several attacks Roller was starting to get angry that Herja wanted to hurt not only him, but Fluttershy as well. He didn’t know why Herja or her mount were so determined to hurt his friend since he slept through the Valkyran’s attack on the Boojiboo. After barely avoiding getting Fluttershy’s leg bit off with another one of his quick rail to rail dodges, he was now righteously angry. Enough was enough! Angling his carapace backwards and lowering his pipes down, Roller slid a confused Fluttershy onto his pipes. He revved loudly and heaved Fluttershy forward with his four pipes, sending her sprawling through the air. Seeing that she was okay and had reoriented her fall to land on a rail, he turned his full attention on to the lizard and it’s rider that had been attacking them. Not having seen what was coming Fluttershy had no idea Roller was going to throw her like he did, she managed to control her unexpected flight forward and landed on the middle of the left three rails. She lifted her two right legs and daintily placed them on an adjacent rail to her right and looked back watching to see what Roller would do. Roller did the one thing that not many of his kind would have expected of him; he slowed down incredibly and avoided getting bitten by the sideways sliding lizard’s mouth. Then he leapt to the right onto the leftmost of the right three rails putting the large lizard’s left side directly in front of him. He shot forward as fast he could and rammed the lizard while bringing his carapace down into its flesh taking a rather bloody chunk out of its hide which swiftly disappeared into Roller’s tire. Herja had to hold on tight as her mount was sent spinning into the air by the impact with the small, but obviously powerful creature. The lizard managed to land them upright on the two far right rails, though they were completely unbalanced. Her ride had a bad injury to show for her failure to lead her lizard to glory, the wound was bleeding quite badly. She was correct to be afraid as to what the wheel monster was going to do next. Roller sped up next to the lizard and with a fast twitch to the left before swinging hard to the right to start spinning rapidly clockwise. That spinning tornado of power leapt right into the lizard’s injured side with enough force to knock it completely off the rails and into open space with a screaming Herja. After a moment to watch them fall away from the rails, Roller revved loudly in victory before he sped up to pick up Fluttershy. The pony was staring back at the wheel with something approaching awe and horror; she had hoped the waivers that said the racers safety was taken into consideration were correct. Looking at the falling form of Herja some mechanical oval things appeared and enwrapped her and her mount in a barrier of some sort, this caused the plant wearing equine some form of relief. As Roller got himself underneath Fluttershy once more, he relished in the taste of that lizards meat as a nice snack while in the middle of a race to help pick up his stamina. He sped up along the rails and moved to the inner rails. He caught up with pack as they got off the rails leading into the final stretch. Every mount had put on a burst of speed for the final stretch, the bit of straight track led to a wide arrow symbol covered ramp. Ahead of that ramp were many more of these speed panels floating in space between the two golden giant glowing orbs that looked like a strange cross between a sun and a moon. The reason for this was that you could actually look at them and not be blinded by them and they didn’t seem to give off any heat in their glowing splendor. It was moments like this that Fluttershy wished she had a camera. Hitting the panels they managed to catch up with a jumping Sylvia as they leapt from panel to panel across the open void of space between the two large orbs, even Betsy was enjoying herself at the incredible speeds they were going at with each jump. Hitting the last bit of track at the end after jumping across all the panels, they could finally see the finish line. At the moment there were only seven racers out of four thousand plus beings to make it this far. They were all jockeying for first place with every ounce of speed they could put out and with a loud sound the finish line was crossed by the racers within a second of each other. The top three racers would be shown on a large screen a few minutes later.