//------------------------------// // 94 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// The battle with the corrupted lizard women gem monsters was short, brutal and painful to watch. It was clear to anyone who looked at them that Bonnie and Roller had a vicious streak going as they had brought down a little more than half the lizard women themselves before the crystal gems Amethyst and Garnet could bring down the rest. Angry wasn’t beginning to describe how Roller and Bonnie felt, but they got better once they let out their frustration all over those poor corrupted crystal gems. It was not like they had a plan for getting Head Hunter to Hawaii anyway. Jumba didn’t have a working ship at the moment and would take weeks on doing repairs on what he did have that might be able to make it all the way to Beach City. “So what are we going to do now?” Foxglove was barely carrying three bubbled crystals, one in each wing and one barely balanced upon her head which Garnet gather up one at a time and made disappear relieving her of her burden. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting Head Hunter and I’m going to scan that spot with everything it has available to scan it with!” Of the things they’ve been through, Bonnie wasn’t about to abandon Fluttershy to some horrible fate. She was going to take down anyone who tried to make her do so, Roller definitely agreed with her and she could vaguely see Foxglove nodding off to the side. Garnet still couldn’t see the future, but she was getting snippets of lots of strange things occurring. The one obvious thing is that Pearl wouldn’t be coming back unless Bonnie stayed safe from what little she could gleam. Sapphire’s reasoning for the future being so unclear was because there were too many chaotic variables around, Fluttershy or Soft Echo might have been part of those variables and one was definitely Bonnie Jookiba. The future was almost impossible to divine except for the one certain thing, Bonnie was somehow important to Pearl coming back home safe and happy. Ruby swore that she would do what she could to make sure Bonnie fulfilled the small bit of future that she could glimpse using her strength. - Fluttershy’s mind went through a series of emotions, fear, anger, unease, worry, doubt and every little tingling of emotion that she had been missing for the most part of the last day and a half up until now. Even then she clutched to Soft Echo like a life preserver, the poor little filly was shrieking and looking around at the strange tunnel of energy they were being forced down. She was upset that she now had a daughter, but also very happy because she never thought she would ever want to be with a stallion since she had quite an aversion to them since childhood. The only stallions she has ever really liked were her father, her brother or her friend’s family members who were friendly and male. She would have eventually asked Big Mac if he could donate some sperm for artificial insemination so she could have a child, she definitely wasn’t about to get between him and Cheerilee either way if she was denied that. That plan was all but thrown out the window with Soft Echo’s existence; she silently mourned the fact that Soft had almost entirely skipped the foal phase of her life, but silently thanked whatever made her come out already potty trained. Her head needed time to cope with the emotions and she barely had time to react when they were spat out of the strange void towards a river like a cannon. Fluttershy reoriented their two bodies so that she would hit the water first and would be using her spine to take the blow, they were moving way too fast to slow down. So she did the best she could by opening her wings wide to alleviate hitting the river at full terminal velocity and struck the cold harsh water first for Soft. She covered the little filly’s mouth and nose after forcing her to inhale air before they struck the water. She quickly swam back to the surface her mane wet and slapping her in the face, holding onto a scared Soft as she tried to swim for shore. It was late at night wherever they ended up and once she finally crawled onto shore with Soft she tapped her daughter to take all the cold water off of her in the form of a cloud to make sure she didn’t get sick. Soft squeaked and looked around in fear, everything was a lot darker than it should have been. Her mommy was breathing hard and looked to be hurt; she nuzzled into her mother closely and looked around in fright as her mother covered her shivering body. It was cold, dark and everything was hard to see; it was really scary for the bat filly and even her mother’s warmth barely calmed her down. “It’s okay Soft, I’m here.” She was there if only slightly, her back hurt, her wings were sore, she just took a very cold dip in a river and despite having made the excess water leap off of her body turning it immediately into a cloud, she was still freezing and using her remaining body temperature to make sure Soft was okay. “Everything will be okay… I think.” Now wasn’t a good time for Fluttershy to be unsure of herself as Soft was looking to her with those bright glowing purple eyes and was whining about the sudden change in environment. She took off the hat and ran her hoof over her daughters red mane several times and Soft started whimpering into her chest. Snuggling her until she pulled back, she put Soft’s hat back on her head. Looking around they had ended up in some kind of foggy grassland area, which was bad if Fluttershy couldn’t fly. It wasn’t all bad though as Fluttershy could still gather fog and use it for a safety blanket against predators. Flapping her wings to test them Fluttershy cringed at the soreness she felt shooting down to her slightly battered spine. What was worse was when an earsplitting howl sounded out nearby, Fluttershy stiffened and Soft didn’t make a noise as she pressed as deeply into Fluttershy’s chest as she could. Grabbing and combining the clouds she made from her and Soft’s dip in the river, Fluttershy put Soft on the resulting cloud and climbed aboard herself before painfully flapping her wings several times, they were about twenty five feet in the air in the fog. They should be safe enough from wolves now, though she had never heard of wolves that sounded like that, there was something very off about the vocalization of the wolf that had made that howl. Having expended herself swimming to shore Fluttershy took a moment to rest and Soft draped Fluttershy’s mane over herself using it as a blanket. What sounded like a snarl and a pounce was heard below them, looking over the edge of the cloud she could vaguely see the shape of several wolves looking around in confusion. This was a common thing that happened with pegasi when sitting on low hanging clouds, it confused predators thoroughly when they smelt prey and just couldn’t find them. There was a tendency among predators to chase a pegasus for miles despite them never landing once on the ground; some predators were rather persistent in getting a taste of flying avian mammal. These wolves didn’t seem dumb, they in fact looked rather intelligent as they looked up towards the sky and sniffed the air itself. Soft looked over the edge of the cloud and saw a bunch of angry sounding doggies looking around; they didn’t very happy or nice. Mother pulled her from the edge of the cloud and held a hoof up to her mouth and shook her head no, she pointed a hoof at her eyes repeating the process while pointing over the side of the cloud. Not exactly understanding what her mother was getting at, she just cuddled cutely up to her mother in an affectionate manner, her mane and fur keeping her warm. Fluttershy hoped the dip in the river had made their scents unnoticeable, she hasn’t exactly been so lucky previously despite handling a bizarre amount of dangerous situations that would see her dead. The wolves suddenly did something interesting they began changing their shapes to more humanoid looking wolves that interacted and pointed upwards towards her and Soft’s cloud. The human wolves were entirely too curious about the low hanging cloud that was now drifting away from them to the west as far as Fluttershy tell, the fact their eyes held an upper level intelligence behind them was worrying. Compared to the fog, the cloud Fluttershy and Soft were on stood out pretty well above the fog. The humanoid wolves barked at one another about this oddity and started to slowly follow the cloud while hunting and eating smaller prey off to the side. The two ponies weren’t about to come out of that cloud anytime soon that was attracting the attention of a pack of smart werewolves. Fluttershy studied the very much intelligent beings; they weren’t animals and that was for certain given how smart they were and had the ability to tell something was up with the cloud. She could see a roadway underneath them temporarily and she still had no idea where she was at all, just that dangerous beings were nearby and quite hungry. She wasn’t about to tell them not to go about eating small animals as that was just nature at work, if she were back home then she would say no and stare them down as her house was an animal sanctuary. She just rested and slowly regained her strength, taking a blow for Soft hadn’t exactly been pleasant, but she would do it as many times as she needs to without regret. Despite Soft Echo and her staying so incredibly quiet, they kept following the cloud in a still rather unbridled curious manner. They weren’t looking nearly as hungry an hour later, but they were still watching the low hanging cloud like a hawk. Soft hadn’t made a single squeak the entire time as she shivered against Fluttershy; her daughter was going to be a ‘Quiet Game’ champion in the future. Eventually Fluttershy heard a voice that earned her attention. “We are nearing the ancient ones place, yet this quarry is still oddly enticing as if an old memory is playing upon my senses. All I see is but a cloud, it is still enticing all the same.” The voice was definitively masculine and sounded to come out in a growl. It was moments later that Fluttershy realized that her translator recognized their barking and growling as a language and had deciphered it quickly since it was a rather simplistic guttural language. It actually kind of made sense now why she couldn’t understand them previously, they weren’t exactly bestial enough for her to automatically understand what they were saying like she could do with most animals. “Do we continue to follow my mate?” A feminine looked human wolf with long fur hanging down her back spoke. They surprisingly had Scolttish accents, which confused Fluttershy a bit as that meant Earth had something like the Scolttish here. Well if she was even still on earth that was, at this point she wouldn’t be surprised to be on an entirely different planet after the magical send away from the world of the Aldebaran’s. “There is something in the air that smells of great familiarity to me, I still want to look into it more. The rest of the pack can hunt elsewhere while we continue to follow it.” The male human wolf seemed to turn back to the cloud and spoke to the rest of his pack with his back turned. “Remember you are free to roam, but do not attack the humans as that will lead to our quick destruction! Heed my warnings and lessons well, since it has almost happened three times since the mighty one saved our pack from destruction long ago.” Obviously the beings lived alongside the humans and they knew better than to attack them what with things like those gunships being capable of ripping them to shreds. Whatever these beings were, they were obviously keeping hidden and the knowledge of their existence secret like the changelings had once upon a time. It was rather understandable that they didn’t want to bother anyone and wanted to just live a peaceful life, well as peaceful as carnivorous wolf beings could be when it came to not harming other intelligent beings. Fluttershy wasn’t about to make a noise and Soft Echo wasn’t going to fall asleep in such an incredibly tense situation. They continued drifting until Fluttershy saw a problem, she couldn’t move the cloud without being spotted, it was about to become a moot point when they came upon large stones place in a vaguely circular manner. This was a major problem as cloud was losing altitude to what looked like a megalith, something Maud would definitely have had a field day with. Having a panic attack was not something Fluttershy would do at this moment; she would protect her child and do it with everything she had if it became obvious that these beings couldn’t be negotiated with. They sounded reasonable enough already, hopefully they’d prefer to talk instead of fill their bellies with an intelligent being. “The cloud is not lifting higher; it proves that there is something odd about it.” Yep the two wolf humans were intelligent and curious as ever. “We are practically at the ancient ones home, is this a sign of his demise? He has lived a long time in this area and has yet perished despite the prophecy stating he would do so there. I hope it is not an ill omen for a old friend.” That was the second time an ancient being was mentioned and Fluttershy didn’t think it was Luna or Celestia that was going to be here. When the cloud came down to about twelve feet above the ground and within reach of the tall wolves, she carefully beckoned Soft Echo onto her back and leapt then leapt from the cloud before it hit one of the massive stone pillars. Her leap had startled the two wolf humans and she landed facing them and she wasn’t afraid to use ‘The Stare’ in this instance as she backed away from them towards the center of the tall standing blocks of stones. She had been cured of her previous affliction and her stare wasn’t about to cause her problems now, she was being brave for Soft. “D-don’t come any closer.” Fluttershy was glad that her words were translated much to the shock of the two wolf humans, what was a further shock was that her wings were spread in a defensive manner and she was clearly wearing a locket with the moon on it. Aside from the translation device the locket was the only thing she had on her aside from Soft and the hat that brought them here, the locket had a particular symbol that these particular werewolves tended to worship. “Aye, we will not be bother ye’ very much lass. This is what we have been following Cameron? She looks rather determined to protect the cold looking wee one on her back.” The female wolf human seemed to ease her aggressive stance immediately upon seeing Fluttershy after she jumped from the cloud. “They are strangers and I’ve never seen beings quite stranger than them and we’re werewolves.” “Werewolves, what are werewolves?” Despite their less than aggressive attitude Fluttershy wasn’t about to drop her wings in front of them. Soft poked her head out over one of the wings and whimpered slightly. “There is more to it than that; they bear the cap of the mighty one that saved our clan before that evil doctor could kill any of them.” The male werewolf turned to Fluttershy with a sharp look; he was impressed that she hadn’t even flinched at his sudden movement. “We be the immortal werewolves of Dunneglen, a werewolf is a being of mystical power to switch between all states wolf and human. Now what are you and where did ye get that cap from lass?” Fluttershy lowered her guard slightly and sighed in relief that they didn’t seem violent and or immediately dangerous, they were actually willing to just talk. She told them her name and that she was a pegasus pony, her filly she referred to as her daughter was a vampire fruit bat pony. She clearly stressed the fruit part of Soft Echo’s vampirism. “As for the hat… a friend of mine found it washed up on a beach at night. She gave it to my daughter and then we kind of didn’t heed the warning and fell past a cliff while were being given a tour of a lighthouse by a friendly little colt. Then this portal opened up and we splashed into the river, are we in this Dunneglen place?” As she was talking to the male werewolf, Fluttershy hadn’t noticed that Soft had taken to the female werewolf and was getting rather playful with her. She watched to make sure that she wasn’t going to do anything untoward Soft. “No, we are a fair bit further south than that, in fact an old friend lives in this here area and here he has been since the fall of the mighty one.” Cameron and the pony watched as Lillian gave Soft a pony back ride in wolf form and the filly was all giggles about getting a ride from the big doggy. “He is quite a sorry fellah with a story I tell you, I’m Cameron and that there is my mate Lillian playing with your wee pup.” “So where are we? What can you tell me about that hat that brought us here?” This meeting had turned from possibly being scary and violent to being friendly and understanding, Fluttershy was quite surprised. “Let me go get a fire started and then we’ll talk. The ancient one will be drawn to the flames and he will see fit to tell you about the hat himself as he and the thing have a long history.” Upon hearing the little ones tummy rumbling Cameron smiled and patted Soft on the head making her smile. “As for where we are, welcome to Stonehenge. Lillian here will see to it the little pup gets some food, fruit most likely from your description of her vampire nature and we don’t mind that she was born like that. In fact we’d be hypocrites if we did mind. Anything you need and my pack will be happy to provide, within reason of course.” “Fish or any aquatic life form will be okay for us to eat, fruits are definitely good too mostly for her and maybe a vegetable or two for me? Any other kind of meat is bad for us though and will make us sick.” They looked scary like the big baboon thing Fluttershy had met long ago, but they were really nice once you got past their violent tendencies to rip little animals to shreds. She wasn’t about to begrudge them for being wolves, as it was in their nature despite being more intelligent than normal wolves. “That there is a bit surprising, flying, talking ponies that eat fish. It’s amazing the things that you can find when you travel.” Cameron stalked off to get a decent supply of wood and call the rest of the pack for a meeting at Stonehenge. They might even see the ancient one, he knew the old one wasn’t dead yet his smell was still fresh within the general area. - Out in deep space a pockmarked purple ship that had recently survived numerous assassination attempts on it flew towards earth. It stopped in the atmosphere and was avoiding detection for the moment. Inside the ship a strangely suited figure tapped out various things on the keyboard, behind this figure were three alien monkeys and two large green quick footed birds. The figures suit looked like a living shifting mass in some way. “I’m detecting the Chozo beacon of Head Hunter Samus, this planet in particular has many alien visitors and they are regulated from mingling with the native populace who is barely into their space exploration age. The beacons location is in a place called Beach City, grand galactic thief Bonnie Jookiba was last seen in the presence of Head Hunter coming back to this world. It is known that her father was seen in the Galactic Federation at some time and she is the likely culprit that has stolen your ship.” The computer on the Head Hunter Mark Two had a mental AI of a former person that Samus knew and while the ship couldn’t pilot itself or work the weapons, it could work the scanners and offer advice freely. “So what do you think lady?” Samus just typed out a response not bothering to speak up, she had been through so much since her rescue by the GFS Valhalla flight teams. She almost came off as mute, when she was really just being silent and her genetics were now even further removed from being that of a natural born Terran. She was a mutated being of incredible awe inspiring power that blew up planets and scared entire governments into trying to have her put down. At this point finding this Bonnie and asking her rather roughly why she stole her ship would be just another adventure in the reality that Samus had to live with. She knew she could never go back to the Galactic Federation; even so it would be rather nice to see what remained of her old ship after it’s been through the Galactic Alliance that was as far removed from Federation space as she could safely get. The big green bird crooned sadly at the broken woman sitting in the chair preparing some landing coordinates to begin another hunt and this time her target wasn’t going to give her any guff. The Etecoons didn’t seem particularly happy that Samus had lost her heart somewhere and the Dachoras were also equally upset. Samus lifted her arm cannon and made a shooing gesture to get the animals to leave her alone, this Bonnie had gotten a hold of her old ship and she was obviously a dangerous criminal. She figured it might be just best to go in guns blazing first instead of giving the planet a chance to start self destructing just because she arrived on it; because at this point she was rather jaded about everything.