//------------------------------// // 76 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// After passing the finish line at high speeds Roller skidded into a complete stop, he closed his eyes then gave off a revving noise of success and for a few minutes didn’t do a single thing after. Fluttershy worriedly got off of him and wondered what was wrong until she heard the whirring noise of the wheel snoring away having tuckered himself out on going fast throughout the insane race. She gently hugged him and gave him rub on the carapace in which he starts snuggling into her soft grip. Fluttershy looked up at the large screen that the audience gathered for the Galactic Conjunction was also looking up at. She was curious at what their placement was among the seven racers at the finish line looking up along with her. She was just happy to have survived everything. - “As you all know, but for those of you who do not, anyone who passes the finish line still get prizes. If you’re within the top ten you’ll win a lot more and there are still three slots open for eighth, ninth and tenth place. There are still three hundred active racers still on the track, so we can only guess as to how many will finish this year. Now we’re going to announce the top five racers while we’re waiting for the others to finish.” The announcer switched the big screen to show the fifth place person. “In fifth place we have the mount Red Baroon and his rider Snup P. Peabody!” The screen show the white dog with a red tie and goggles sitting on top of the living dog house with a chimney with crab claws four legs and multiple eyes at where the entrance would be. Fluttershy had seen them at the beginning of the race; the dog house with crab claws for legs was pretty fast to have made it to the finish line without trouble. The crowd cheered and there were a few white dogs with red ties, one of them even had a red haired glasses wearing humanoid with them. “In fourth place and a fresh newcomer to the race who has survived all the obstacles for her first Galactic Conjunction, she’s popular with the crowd and was such a sweetheart during the race. She’ll stop to help you if you’re in real trouble and her wheel friend is a spunky speedster, mount Mr. Roller Wheel and his lovely rider Flutter Felicity Shy!” At the roar of the crowd, the pony cowered behind the sleeping form of the tuckered out wheelie as the spotlight came onto them. Well Fluttershy had done impressively out of four thousand alien racers, some of which were more violent than others. Now if only she could stop being so shy and frightened by all the eyes that had fallen onto her. All the happy cheering was really nice, but the pony obviously didn’t like the attention she was getting. “In third place, he enters every year with his Tortugan mount and hopes to someday get first place. His Tortugan is trained to be the fastest of her kind and he’s a dapper little guy who always tries to keep smiling even in the worst of situations. The mount Shellaby and her rider Squib!” The spotlight now fell onto a pink skinned turtle with a several shades of purple coloring its shell who was obviously Shellaby. On her back was a small green square headed guy with four small limbs who waved at the cheering crowd, on his head was a small purple banded bowler style hat and sticking out from under it was tufts of purple hair. Fluttershy had seen that turtle thing run, it was amazing what Shellaby can do with a cross between turtle flippers and a tortoises legs for mobility. Shellaby ran much faster than any turtle or tortoise she had ever seen and that would be an understatement of the small alien turtle’s abilities. “In second place along with a substantial amount of prize money they’ve earned, these two contestants will receive free jellyfish pies from eateries across the Galactic Alliance for a year. She has lost her explosive temperament and her rider is still one of the friendliest guys you’ll ever meet. Sylvia the Time Bomb and her rider Wander!” As the spotlight fell on them, Sylvia perked up immediately at hearing there would be Jellyfish Pie in her future and looked positively filled to the brim with joy. Wander on the other hand looked slightly sick at the idea of even tasting another jellyfish pie, but he wasn’t about to let Sylvia’s prize go to waste and would take her by a place at least once every other day. Fluttershy had thought Sylvia and Wander had got first place, but if they didn’t and they were ahead for most of the final stretch. Then who did get first place? “Now to the winner of an all expenses paid one week vacation to Mahambas Six for four including food and spa trips that comes along with the largest amount of prize money earned for getting first place. The winners of the Galactic Conjunction annual race, one is of the Galactic Alliance’s finest officers and the other is an independent thinking engineer of his species. Let’s give it up for mount Betina ‘Betsy’ Bucks-a-ton and her rider LGM Soxnin!” After the announcer had spoken the spotlight fell on a shocked stiff Betina who had little clue as to how she managed it. “Let’s look at the finish line replay; she’s quite the sprinter and a top notch Space Ranger on par with the best the Galactic Alliance has to offer and a darn good shot with that out of uniform pistol of hers! We will show the race highlights after the rest of the competitors either fail or manage to pass the finish line. We will also be selling highlight photos of the race; all the contestants will get a packet of these memorable captured images for free!” The giant screen showed the finish line just as Sylvia was about to pass over it, Betsy shot by with her one eye closed and charging with her shoulder forwards and passed barely a jiffy over the line ahead of Sylvia. The centaur had looked to be going for broke at the very end and had managed to squeeze a ridiculously small victory out of it. “I…. won?” Betsy just stood there with her ears laid back and her arms went limp and her rear end in slapped against the racetrack while she tried to comprehend just what had exactly happened. Her inability to comprehend her victory continued on through standing on the first place spot at the podium where Sylvia made her apologies to Squib about an earlier race where she had gotten aggressive with him. They were the three top racers. - It was after the race and Fluttershy was meeting with Wander and Sylvia over at the Rhizome’s healthy snacks booth. Sox came to the meeting place leading a still stunned and highly boggled Betsy by one of her hands with that same blank look in her eye. She still apparently couldn’t believe she had won and it would likely be a while before she finally came to her senses, otherwise she had been helpful in carrying a sleeping Roller around. “So what did you need to see us about?” Sylvia was already hankering for a taste of that sweet jellyfish pie; sure Wander might not have liked it nearly as much as she did. It was a delicacy that many species enjoyed and possibly an acquired taste to others. Plus even if she hadn’t wanted her prize, she could have effectively traded it for something that she did like. “Well it all started when…” Fluttershy had to give them and abridged recap of every painful thing that had happened to her, the friends she had made along the way and the distances she had traveled. - “That’s why I asked to talk with the two you or specifically Mr. Wander here. Um… what’s wrong with him?” It almost looked to Fluttershy like Wander was about to explode all over the room. “Oh you poor thing, as a Star Nomad of course I’ll help you! Golly, I would have done that anyway even if I weren’t one, first I need to give you a big hug without the suit in the way!” Wander of course didn’t care about clothes very much, neither did Sylvia. Public nudity wasn’t bad unless you were intentionally flashing people in the Galactic Alliance, so it was perfectly okay. Fluttershy nervously rubbed at her front left leg as the suit retracted into a backpack form, then Wander gave her a big hug wrapping his fuzzy soft arms around her in a very comforting hug. After a moment she began hugging him back and nuzzling into his embrace. After a moment they separated feeling warm fuzzy feelings. “That should be enough. Now come on, let’s go find your home!” After a moment Wander stopped and noticed Fluttershy wasn’t following him in his excitement. “I have things to do first. Can you find it first and then find me afterwards to take me there?” Of the things she still had to do was paying Bonnie’s bail with Betsy’s help and then going to earth to stop Clyde from dying. “You can find my home right?” “Of course I can, though it’ll take me a while to find the right planet I know I have the right stuff to do it! The one with the geocentric system and beings like you on it called ponies right? Shouldn’t take too long to find and I gave you a hug so it should be much easier!” Wander took on a thoughtful pose, it shouldn’t take him very long to find her home planet or find his way back to Fluttershy at all. No matter where she went Wander would always be able to find Fluttershy after that hug. “So what are you going to be doing in the meantime while we are off finding your planet for you?” “I’ve got a friend to bail out of jail and then we’re going to try and save someone’s life, hopefully he’ll be okay. I’ve also got a ship that I need to pick up as well… I’ve got some really important things to do before I can go home even with your help.” After a moment Fluttershy smiled a simple smile with her eyes closed. She was going to go home and since Wander said he could, she believed him. She still had to make sure, she opened her eyes to stare seriously into Wander’s eyes and saw a whole universe staring back at her. “Can you do one thing for me while you’re still here? Pinkie Promise me that you’ll come visit when you get me home?” “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye! I think your friend Pinkie sounds like a hoot and a half, hope those cupcakes are good as you say they are. I wonder if she likes banjo music.” After a moment of staring into those sad yet happy eyes, Wander frowned slightly and then he pulled his hat from his head and held it out to Fluttershy. He wanted to make the pony happy and he already had what he needed to do just that given his powers for finding any place in the universe. What he wanted was for her to be even happier right now. “Reach into my hat and pull out something. It’ll give you what you need, but it won’t give you what you want. What you need right now, it will provide! You want a way home. I’m already going to take care of that with my abilities, though it may take a little time so please be a little patient miss. Star Nomads can actually get anywhere, but it’s not like we’re capable of instantaneous jumps across the universe.” - Pinkie sneezed and something strange went off in her brain, her earth pony magic drove her to make a batch of cupcakes and start setting them out on a large metal tray with cards with names she didn’t know written on them to set in front of the cupcakes. She followed this by placing a picture of all her friends on the tray with a cheesy message. “Huh, why in the world did I do this? I’m sure it’ll come to me eventually.” Suddenly Pinkie’s body went through a series of really odd motions that a normal pony couldn’t have possibly survived; she couldn’t even describe or put into words exactly what she felt doing it and surviving the experience. “Whoa, that was a little weird even for me. It’s like the entire universe just said hello to me… um, hello back universe? Can you please give Fluttershy back to us? You know, in one piece. We really miss her!” After that plea to the universe, Pinkie went back to trying to find a way to cheer up their most recent visitor that came from a distant world. This was keeping them all busy from reassuring Fluttershy that everything was okay… well mostly okay considering the visitor was kind of self destructive and a little violent. She was a top priority target for Pinkie to make happy before she caused any more trouble over any more ‘slight’ misunderstandings, the horribly depressed alien was not something Pinkie had any knowledge on how to make happy. At least Maud’s presence was highly comforting to her and Maud’s talent really helped in that regard; maybe the alien could be Maud’s special pony who wasn’t a pony. - “Oh this’ll be interesting. You see Fluttershy, Wander’s hat still to this day baffles me to this day how it works and trust me it does. Took me a while to figure out just to trust what he pulls out of it will be useful in context to the situation, it’s rather highly context sensitive in fact. Once took me pulling out a large metal ball with a chain to make me realize where Wander was when I had to rescue him from this worm monster on a mushroom planet.” Sylvia chuckled dryly at the memory of saving her best friend when she was getting mad at his magical hat for giving her exactly what she needed in that moment. “Hopefully you don’t pull out a sock. He dragged me across the universe at least twice to return one to its owner, so you can always trust Wander to come through for you.” Fluttershy pensively looked at the hat and reached in with a hoof and grabbed something she felt along the edge of that something and found another edge, she reached in with both hooves and heaved out a tray with cupcakes on it and a photo of her and her friends. She blinked owlishly at the tray and continued pulling; it was one of Sugar Cube Corners trays and there were little cards with each individually specially wrapped cupcake and a quite a few spares to snack on. There was nothing more flabbergasting than pulling an authentic Sugar Cube Corner baking tray out of a hat loaded with cupcakes and a message on a photo of her and her friends that said ‘friends forever’. Setting the tray down on the nearby counter the Rhizomian’s were working, Fluttershy felt tears welling up in her eyes and she hugged the photo to her chest for all the sentimental value it was worth. One of the people from Rhizome picked up a cupcake because the card had his name on it, written in his language. Shrugging, he took the strange confection out of its packaging and took a nibble and hummed thoughtfully at how delicious it was. - “Sorry misses cake. I swear I didn’t swallow an entire tray this time; it just disappeared into thin air!” Pinkie noticed that Mrs. Cake was scrutinizing her belly for a large rectangular shape, she was remembering what happened the last time Pinkie had put a lot of iron in her diet. “I’m inclined to believe you this time, just remember that tinfoil is not food dear.” Mrs. Cake worried about Pinkie Pie sometimes. As she turned away she didn’t notice a faint five pointed yellow star shaped glow appearing on Pinkie’s forehead. The marking flickered for a few seconds before disappearing completely as Pinkie idly rubbed at her forehead feeling a little strange. - “Thanks for sharing what you pulled from out of my hat. This is the first time I’ve ever tasted something like this and it even had my name on it!” Wander was now a very happy individual, as he managed to cheer up Fluttershy and turn her little frown right around. Even Sylvia thought the cupcake for her was nice, but it still wasn’t a jellyfish pie and she had been quietly nagging Wander about it. “Come on Sylvia, it’s time we set out to look for that planet. Smile a little more Fluttershy!” With that Wander created a bubble around him and Sylvia after waving a small bubble wand around. After waving goodbye Wander sat on Sylvia as she started walking, which caused the bubble to take them up into the air and away from the Rhizome booth. The Galactic Conjunction was still going on and Fluttershy felt a light skip in her steps as she went to go get a free packet of highlight photos of the race. The batch of wrapped cupcakes couldn’t have been made by none other than Pinkie Pie. She didn’t know how it happened or how Wander’s hat gave her exactly what she needed, but she couldn’t be happier unless she was with them right now after getting a small warm taste of home. Unfortunately Fluttershy still had things to do before she could return to Equus. - “I have to wonder who from the planet Heck would be stupid or moronic enough to actually pay off my bail! Don’t they know who I am and that I’m no good to any… one…” Bonnie’s ear wilted immediately as did her antenna. In front of her she could see a smiling Fluttershy who was standing with a blank faced centaur. Bonnie became suddenly very shy in the face of Fluttershy who reached into her saddlebags and pulled out a cupcake with a card that had her name on it. “Um… I…” Silently and slowly Bonnie took the cupcake unwrapped it and slowly ate it; it was of course delicious like the one that Pinkie dropped off back on Tradeworld. After she was done she handed the wrapper back to Fluttershy who had her Rhizome suit in its backpack form. “It’s okay Bonnie; I know I can be pretty dumb at times. I would like to think that helping out a friend even if it might get you killed is always worth it no matter the outcome.” Fluttershy brought a stuttering and completely flummoxed fuzzy green experiment into a calm gentle hug. “You need to calm down and breathe.” “How is he? Is he…” Bonnie said softly nuzzled her face into Fluttershy’s comforting form while, her fur felt nice against her blushing cheeks and she inhaled the ponies scent deeply. “See for yourself, is it supposed to be going faster?” Fluttershy backed away and pulled out Clyde to Bonnie with her feathered wing; a tenth of the entire sphere was solid grey now completely blotting out the number on it. “That’s kind of slow; I thought at least three fourths of the sphere would have been consumed by this point. He shouldn’t even be lasting this long and there’s no way he’s being resilient in the state he’s in, especially not how he was before going into it. He looked like a corpse before I put him in this state Fluttershy.” The sphere was pressed into Bonnie’s hand and then her fingers were forcefully curled around it by two gentle hooves. She looked up at the pony that put her hooves over her hands enclosed around Clyde’s sphere. “Bonnie, we’re going to Earth and we’re going to save your brother. Though we’ve never met, I’d think the last thing he would lose is the name of his big sister and how much she cared for him before he dies. If he dies, he’s going to hold on to that to his very last as you’re his ohana.” Fluttershy turned about and sauntered away. She turned her head back to Bonnie with a cheerful smile. “Now come on, let me help you go save your brother.” Bonnie gave her friend smile and made a promise to herself as she followed Fluttershy out the door to a new future. She’d eventually tell Fluttershy that she was her ohana too and that meant a lot. She was now like her brother Stitch as she had found a place where she truly belonged, but she didn’t know if she could put a large square into a small hole that was round. She’d force it if she had to, no matter how much effort it took to change. She had changed a bit already since meeting this crazy dame. As Fluttershy left with a slightly more upbeat Bonnie, a smiling Veritas slowly slid out of the shadows nibbling at a cupcake. She’d of course be back to her stoic self in no time, but for now she’d just enjoy the taste of a nice snack. She never did tell Fluttershy her theory as to what the princesses on her planet actually were, it wasn’t very important until they could meet face to face so that she could confirm it for herself. - Bonnie was amazed that Fluttershy would go through the trouble of trying to win the Galactic Conjunction just for her even if the odds weren’t in the ponies favor. It was nice to hear that she made fourth place and still somehow managed to pay her bail. Looking behind her she could see other rangers congratulating Betsy; said centaur had been rather blank looking and had continued to carry around a rather amused looking wheel monster for quite a while and didn’t seem bothered by it. She really wanted to ask Fluttershy what that was all about, but instead she wondered why they were in the middle of ranger central. She was kind of nervous about being on Star Command again. “Oh… they’ve really changed the Head Hunter. It looks… nice.” Fluttershy was looking at what was once the Head Hunter and was now an altered pink and yellow ship. It had her real cutie mark emblazoned on it and it was not the twisted one that still marred her flank. The ship seemed to be sitting on four yellow hooves and it looked like the LGMs made it look more pony like if the ear like fins were anything to go by. In fact it almost looked to be modified to look more like Fluttershy’s head. “Bonnie this, regrettably, is my ship.” Sighing the pony hoped that the real owner wasn’t upset that some overzealous LGMs heavily personalized the ship for her. “Holy buck, I won!” Betina finally accepted her victory.