//------------------------------// // 90 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Head Hunter was parked about ten miles from Beach City in the middle of a forested area next to a body of fresh water, Fluttershy crawled out of the water tossing her mane with a smile. It felt so nice to get a little bit cleaner, she could use a cloud to scrub all the grime off of her body and she could even immediately dry out her body by forming a cloud using the water that she was drenched in. Her fur was completely clean and dry within seconds; she also performed the same thing for Soft Echo having scrubbed the little giggling filly down. Soft had quietly crawled out of the water following Fluttershy chirruping all the way and was happy to suddenly be dry and watched as her smaller cloud followed the larger one into the sky with smile. Bonnie just watched Fluttershy toss her mane and sighed, she still wondered why she was so attracted to the four legged being. Maybe it was because she never exactly had a mother or maybe she just had a thing for quadrupeds. Shaking her head, she went back to inspecting the grapple beam port after having checked everything else over. This was the last thing before they roll the city in the makeshift tank. Foxglove landed next to Bonnie who reached in and started pulling wallets out of the grapple beam port, much to the bats consternation. There were about seven or eight of them in there, Bonnie took the best looking wallet out of the bunch and started taking the money out of the other wallets to put into that one. “What? Didn’t you notice how the things I kept grappling were gradually getting smaller? I kind of clogged the grapple beam by stealing their wallets. Thanks to all the missing glass, their pockets were wide open for me and I did tell Fluttershy I was going to show her a magic trick.” Grinning sheepishly up at the blank faced Fluttershy as she made sure the grapple beam was cleaned and ready for use again. “Besides the little ankle biter of Sweet Cheeks is going to need food and the criminals obviously weren’t going to be using their money in prison. In any case there’s a reason why I told the dragon warrior guys not to blink. Did you guys know me and Clyde could have made it as stage magicians? Our motto is, ‘Don’t Blink, we’re magicians and you don’t know what’ll be missing when you do so around us.’” “I wish I could be angry at you right now.” Fluttershy stated in a bland tone, she had no bleeding cuts since Foxglove used a little magic to heal the minor wounds she took in evading the ninja throwing objects. The bat had also pulled two ninja stars out of Fluttershy in the process of healing her and Bonnie said she was keeping them as it was finder’s keepers and she was pretty good with throwing weapons. “I didn’t even see when she stole the wallets and I was sitting right there watching her drive the entire time.” Oh Foxglove knew that Bonnie referred to herself as a thief, she just had no idea how good a thief Bonnie was. “At least you aren’t getting on to me about stealing Jakes phone. Speaking of, I need to do something right quick.” Pulling out the cell phone Bonnie hit one of the numbers on it and waited for someone to pick up. “Hello? Yeah, I have his phone. He never asked for it back to begin with, so it’s not me you should be angry at Trixie. Anyway, I’m just calling to let Jake know that I have his phone and I’m wondering if I could keep it, he could use a new one anyway. By the way are you his girlfriend or something? Oh, well that’s cool. So are you that Spud guy’s girlfriend or something…. that sounds oddly rather defensive of you, are you sure you’re not dating that guy? Nope, not magical, I’m alien in origin and I’m thinking Jake hasn’t told you about the existence of extra terrestrials yet. I heard he’s going to be dealing with us as well soon and there are plenty of aliens around New York for him to worry about.” “WHAT!” The voice on the phone screeched and then the cell phone Bonnie was holding went dark. “Huh, she hung up. Okay the phone is officially mine, especially since I diverted her from being angry at me to being angry at someone else.” Bonnie smiled brightly as she was still good at redirecting attention; there was hardly a thief on this planet that could match her. “Bonnie are you taking advantage of the fact that I can’t get angry with you?” Well at least angry enough for Fluttershy to use ‘The Stare’. That did require Fluttershy to have emotions other than happiness to use, while she understood Bonnie couldn’t help herself it seemed like she doing it purpose at the moment. “When you get your full emotional range back I’ll honestly tell you and then we’ll go from there.” In all seriousness Bonnie wasn’t actually trying to make Fluttershy angry, but cutting back on thieving was quite hard when it was literally written into your genetics. “Just remember that I was created hard wired to steal stuff and evade danger. I could easily become a treasure hunter, no victim in robbing empty ruins unless I run into someone else.” “Are you sure that money will be useful?” While Fluttershy couldn’t properly emotionally voice her concerns, she still at least wanted to know that Bonnie wasn’t stealing for all the wrong reasons. “Most certainly, the people of Beach City sound like they’re aware of weird things. They will probably ignore what we look like, meaning we can do business with the people there. As I said before ankle biter needs food badly, food that isn’t the medical tomatoes as we’ve only got a limited supply of those things. We need to save them for important situations. Foxglove can’t heal everything with her magic and she can only do small potatoes things from what I’m seeing.” To Bonnie it was rather logical, her thefts up to this point were clearly necessary and Soft Echo did need a balanced diet and couldn’t survive off tomatoes forever no matter how much she loved them. “There’s still that one maximum tomato thing you got in there and if that thing is as powerful as you say it is, we need it as a last resort medical item.” “You do realize the only reason I’m here is to help you and Fluttershy right? I don’t like the fact that you’re stealing stuff, I used to steal stuff until I thought better about what I was doing.” Foxglove didn’t like that Bonnie was a thief, but she could understand that some things were beyond the created alien’s control. Over the hundred miles they took getting to Philadelphia she had learned that Bonnie was made instead of born, it was right horrifying that someone out there could create someone like her. “I don’t hate you; I do hate the situation of you stealing as being an ingrained part of your character.” “Yeah well Fluttershy helps me out with that somewhat, I’m only going to steal for good reasons and or when I find it completely necessary.” At least Bonnie had come a long way in that respect, her brother was a more heroic thief then she was as he actually wanted to do the right thing with his skills. Of course thinking of her brother brought her mood down a notch. “At least I’m no longer taking everything that’s nailed down, the nails and the things that were nailed down. I’ve come a long way since retrieving my currently almost half dead brother from a madman, though I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stop myself from stealing entirely and accept your acknowledgement of my situation. I’m not really a bad person; I just do bad things sometimes because of my kleptomaniac genetics. I put emphasis on the ‘maniac’ part because I’ve stolen some things that are literally out of this world. That Tantibus thing I took from Fluttershy’s version of ‘Sleeping Beauty’ was a small urge I had to scratch, didn’t rightfully know what it was until I had taken it. It was a good thing I did that too, I exposed her problem and she really needed to seek help instead of letting something like that fester.” “That’s why I trust you to do the right thing Bonnie, even when you don’t know that you are.” The honest affection in Fluttershy’s voice had given the friendly thief warm feelings that spread from her chest throughout her entire body. “Now how about we actually get back inside and go to Beach City?” - The next ten mile journey was generally okay until they came to the quiet Beach City suburbs. The spaceship currently performed its role as a tank perfectly and surprisingly without attracting any attention to itself as it stopped at a house on a street. “Okay that should be the right house, where that Connie Maheswaran girl lives. You guys go ahead, I’ll stash our ride nearby where it won’t draw attention and lock it down to make sure no one can take it for a destructive joyride. We don’t want it drawing the trouble that attacked us on the way here.” Waiting for the four beings to get off, Bonnie watched as Fluttershy waved to her with a flat look on her face that they were clear. Bonnie drove the Head Hunter off to stash it away for a while; Beach City didn’t seem to have a police force or much of anything aside from some of the amusement stuff she could see near the beach in the distance. - Fluttershy was with Mr. Roller Wheel, Foxglove and Soft Echo. Soft Echo was draped over Fluttershy’s back and Foxglove was sitting on top of her head, with Mr. Wheel at her side she walked up to the door past the mailbox of the house jammed in tightly among the other small houses. Ponies wouldn’t have been capable of living this way, so closely packed together like this. It made her wonder how the humans could live like this. “So should I talk first or should you be the one to address whoever is living here?” Mentally Fluttershy hoped that it was the right location and it was around lunchtime given they left New York earlier that morning. She had left her Rhizome suit on Head Hunter and didn’t think she’d need it at the moment, if things got dangerous Mr. Wheel would protect them. “These houses don’t seem have doorbells so you’ll have to knock.” All Foxglove wanted to do was to point that out; she was nervous and fidgeting slightly about having to talk to a human. “I’ll talk first.” “Okay then.” Fluttershy wondered where all the people were, there didn’t seem to be much going on around here. They were all probably somewhere else likely at work or something, usually little fillies would be at school and she didn’t exactly know what time of the year on earth was so the filly might be home. Reaching up to the door with her right hoof, the pony gave it a few soft raps. The bat and the wheel looked at her slightly with bored expressions and the filly just yawned and snuggled into Fluttershy’s canary yellow backside. “It’s going to have to be a little harder than that.” Foxglove watched as Fluttershy rapped the door slightly hard than last time. Roller rolled his eyes and rolled straight up to the door and smacked it hard with his carapace three times in rapid succession making sure he was heard, the fact that he did it without damaging the wood was surprising in and of itself. After that some feminine mumbling could be heard coming from inside, two legged footsteps were heard coming up to the door. “Steven is that you… you haven’t really been the same since Pearl…” The girl that had opened the door tried to grasp what she was seeing; a normal human would have either fainted or have immediately screamed their heads off. This girl was not normal and had been touched by magic that fixed her eyesight, she stood there and blinked a few times to make sure what she was seeing was correct. On the doorstep of the Maheswarans was a little cute pinkish brown bat sitting on an oddly colorful beautiful yet strange looking horse, to the side was a strange one wheeled creature and then there was the enigmatic bat filly snuggling into what amounted as her mother’s fur. “Oh my goodness… please tell me you’re part of some magical school and that you’ve come here to teach me your ways and that one of you is going to be my familiar!” Connie on the other hand not being a normal human got excited about the prospect that she might be capable of doing magic because of Steven. She had brown skin and dark brown puffy hair, she was wearing glasses without lenses in them but none of the visitors were going to say anything about that as she obviously had her reasons. “That’s not exactly why we’re here… though I kind of worked as something like a familiar once for a witch, long story short things didn’t exactly work out between us because she was evil and I decided to turn on her.” After a moment Foxglove took to wringing her wings against each other. “I really don’t like being reminded about that, but I did find out that I myself am a magical bat and became somewhat apprenticed to a troll who’s good at using magic from the heart.” “Really, please tell me everything!” Connie kneeled down so that she was eye level with the nervous bat. “Her story has nothing to do as to why we’re here, are you Connie Maheswaran?” The girl was taken aback by the flat tone Fluttershy spoke in. “Yes, I am… um, is something wrong with her?” Connie deferred to the strange talking magical bat on the pony at her doorstep; Steven wasn’t going to believe this unless she showed him these strange beings outright. “The troll that taught me some magic kind of went overboard with healing her, her entire body was under some kind of mostly benign clingy magical curse and he wasn’t exactly the best at destroying stuff like that.” At this point Foxglove pointed out the filly on Fluttershy’s back. “So the blood she might have been spilling from injuries at the time coalesced into the child that’s currently on her back. The side effect of the healing was that she lost most of her ability to feel emotions except for happiness or other positive emotions related to it for a while. Quite frankly my teacher is better at giving life, healing and growing plants then he is at destroying dark or odd curses. The only curse he’s managed to reverse is a petrify spell which he can also cast since he learned it inside and out after being petrified by some evil troll once upon a time.” Roller revved his two cents in on the discussion. He saw a positive outlook in another being that was family to the first one it budded off of; he enjoyed the little creature’s adorable nature and would protect her as she felt like Fluttershy if only in a vaguely different manner. “Roller says that he doesn’t mind the change and I must admit it feels better to be myself and if I get a daughter out of it I can’t really complain until I can put emotions to all the events that have happened leading up to this moment.” Turning to the bat on her head with her flat demeanor Fluttershy continued on. “From what I understand there’s some emotional backlash involved in my future since Foxglove had her wing healed after a bullet shredded it and went through similar problems for an entire week when it was healed. I’m sure it will last only another day or two at the most, which is hopefully a good estimate.” “Yeah, it’s not going to hurt really. I didn’t feel any pain, but I did go through a full range of emotions from embarrassment to anger at myself after it was over with. Since you’re bigger than me the effects should wear off sooner.” Shaking her head Foxglove couldn’t believe they had gotten so off track. “Look can we get to the reason as to why we’re here? I think Connie might explode if we don’t tell her.” “Yes please, I have to know why a bunch of strange creatures are on my doorstep and if we’re going to go on magical adventures together.” Connie was looking at this from a storybook angle and was trying to be genre savvy about it, given all the stories in a series she’s read about familiars and the bat being one for an evil witch made things all that much more intriguing to her. “Oh right, please come in. Don’t track anything on the floor, my parents are out and trying to cheer up my best friend Steven has been really hard on me lately.” “Is it because that dame Pearl is missing?” The girl swiftly spun around and saw Bonnie lying on a couch lazily kicking her feet as if she belonged there and was there all along. Fluttershy moved past Connie and she silently rolled Soft Echo onto the couch from her back, the little filly squeaked and waggled her legs into the air on her back before she rolled onto her side. She snuggled into the couch next to the alien that silently broke into and entered the Maheswarans home from the upper floor balcony. Connie stood there in silence staring at Bonnie with wide eyes. “What, never seen a completely strange and alien creature in your house before?” As Bonnie waggled her eyebrows Fluttershy got into her face. “Bonnie no stealing, we’re guests in this house.” Despite the flat tone, when Fluttershy got her emotions back she was going to stare Bonnie into the floor if she did and soap in the mouth would be the least of the genetically engineered beings worries. “I swear to you as your friend Fluttershy, that I have done nothing more than pick the lock on the upper balcony.” This was actually the truth, Bonnie hadn’t touched a single thing but the floor and obviously the couch since entering the house and she felt no great urge to steal at the moment. So she could actually resist the temptation when she needed to. “I’ll even Pinkie Pie Promise not to steal anything while I’m here and that I haven’t already. Breaking a promise is a quick way to losing a friend you know.” - On Equus Pinkie pulled out a little black book and wrote something down, someone just made a Pinkie Promise and she was going to make sure they kept it. Whatever it is that promise was. Now onto that delicious cake she was making for Maud so she could take Pearl on a stealth date, her sister was quite smitten with the alien rock being. - “Those are rather adorable names for magical creatures.” Connie wanted to bring their attention back to her, she was a little shocked at hearing Pearls name and wondered just how these strange beings in her living room knew about her. “Technically Sweet Cheeks here is a magical alien from a different planet. Soft Echo was actually born out of magic from her on this planet yesterday from that curse; don’t honestly know how that works as she came out like that and not as an infant. I’m Bonnie and basically an alien mutt created from multiple sources of genetic material; if you ever go to Hawaii you’ll definitely see my family resemblance running around everywhere. Roller there is a naturally existing animal from a different planet from Sweet Cheeks.” Turning to the last being in their merry band of weird people Bonnie addressed Foxglove now taking a position on one of the couches. “Foxglove here was actually born here on earth naturally and is the most normal out of all of us; well as normal as an animal with magic can be anyway.” It took a while for Connie to process all this, she knew the Crystal Gems were magical aliens. She had been witness to the Lowardian invasion, except she had written it off as a mad scientist impersonating an alien doing things like Dr. Drakken or Professor Nimnul had done. Connie herself was interested in science and fantasy based stories because of that. Here she was standing and staring at living proof that there was actually magic on earth and that there were more aliens out there then just Steven’s family from his mother’s side. Instead of passing out, she decided to accept the truth for what it was and wanted to know why they were visiting her of all people. “So why are you here and how do you know about Pearl being gone?” Connie looked to the strange beings, she was trying to remember their names perfectly so she wouldn’t ever forget this magical day and it was almost lunch. She wanted to join Steven for a slice of pizza at the Fish Stew Pizza place; it was a little weird but the food was good in her opinion. Her parents were getting much more lenient around her these days and were okay with her hanging out with the Universes and the Gems. “Yeah, funny story that. First she wants you and the rest of her family to know she’s still alive and that she ended up on Fluttershy’s home planet of all places. In an ironic twist of events it’s the same home planet she’s been trying to find for the better part of what amounts to a year since she got lost from it.” Turning to Fluttershy with a frown Bonnie took her hoof in her hands and hugged it to her chest. “One of the planets she went to was full of female cat people which is how she gained a connection back to her home through some weird magical happenstance and is one of the ways she gets into contact with her home planet despite not being able to find it. Only recently she’s found a way for her to get home in the way of a being known as a Star Nomad, he’ll be bringing Pearl back to Earth and he’ll be taking Fluttershy back to her home.” “Wow, your lives sound like they would make a really good story… I have to tell Steven that Pearl is alive!” Connie pulled out her phone to message Steven if he wanted to go out for pizza. “Oh he’ll be so happy to hear about this!”