//------------------------------// // 99 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// “Keep a look out for demons Willy; I have been warned there are many about tonight. I just need to focus to find who I’m looking for.” Felicia closed her eyes and concentrated, Willy the human teenager just watched out for anything out the window. Aldebaran magic wasn’t very effective against living things; things like a machine and flesh fused together wouldn’t fall apart if it would kill the life. What Aldebaran magic was good at was creating advanced technology or mystical objects like memory stones, it also tore apart said technology in the form of any kind of machinery without a soul attached. Their magic was also highly effective against demons; in particular Aldebarans were capable of stopping average sized demons alone if powerful enough. The number of Aldebarans needed to stop larger demons would increase proportionately to how powerful the demon was. What Felicia the Aldebaran princess was doing was sensing for two things, demons and Fluttershy. What she felt was disconcerting in the extreme, there were a lot of demons between her and her target. Even if the distance wasn’t large, the number of demons alone would cause a major delay. “Is there anything I can do to help Felicia?” Turning to Willy with a frown, the cat girl didn’t want to put him in danger as he was a friend of their species. “The best you can do is stay here and safe. If I stay here for too long I might attract the demons to your home and I wouldn’t want your family getting hurt on my conscience. Make sure the doors and windows are sealed when I leave Willy.” Felicia was given a go ahead to use her powers whenever and this situation was serious, she wouldn’t fail her mentor Jenny or Aldebaran. Willy led her to the front door of his house, peaking out of the door for a moment Felicia looked back to him and nodded once before dashing out of the home. Ducking into a nearby alleyway the cloak covered Felicia placed a mental call to Fluttershy, someone she hadn’t seen since the incident where she had been horrifically twisted into a monster by a quark demon. Poking her head out the other end of the alleyway she saw little red creatures hiding in the shadows of humans walking about, the humans most likely wouldn’t see them or even detect them. There were other demons prowling the alleyway across the street, it would be best that she stayed out of sight and avoided places that were too dark. She could do this, this was important and everything was resting on her shoulders. “Fluttershy are you in a safe place? It’s me Felicia; the streets are definitely swarming with demons. If you are safe stay where you are and I’ll come to meet you. If you are not, try to give me a sign as to where you are if you’re in danger.” Felicia slowly made her way onto the street with her eyes darting around everywhere, there were some demons on the roofs nearby, many were in the shadow of alleys in her way to the shortest path to Fluttershy. There were a few that she could feel were on the lookout for something, most likely her and that was a disturbing thought. - “I’m sure I’m in a safe place, I can stay here as long as needed as there is some kind of barrier preventing demons with any amount of ill intent from entering this area.” Fluttershy kind of felt sorry for Belladonna as Soft Echo was playfully batting at her ears held back in a ponytail. The dog’s ire was noticeably raised, but she had yet to hurt Soft or even to attempt to foist her off on someone else again. The last three attempts failed, Soft liked Sasha well enough, Virgil was a little awkward around Soft and Soft just snuggled Fluttershy with unconditional love for her mother before going back to Belladonna. “Your brat is so lucky Annabelle is here to make sure I don’t do something you’re all going to regret.” Alcohol didn’t seem to change Belladonna’s mood one bit; it only made her tipsy as demons obviously had a high tolerance for inebriation. “That leads me to a question, how can you go between heaven and the underworld at will? Why can you still get into heaven?” It had bothered Sasha for the longest time that Belladonna could enter heaven in the spirit realm at will without repercussion or anyone saying much about her being there. “I have a counter question for you, how in the hell did Carface get into heaven in the first place? That guy has got a laundry list a mile long, mind you his early history shouldn’t earn him any sympathy points.” Belladonna cleared her throat and pulled out a piece of parchment from nowhere and looked it over. “He’s a piece of work and responsible for the following before he died for the first time: drug trafficking, child abuse, child trafficking, drugged child abuse and trafficking, gambling, was involved killing your boyfriend in cold blood twice, multiple accounts of seriously injuring humans with a machine gun mounted on another dogs back, stealing, fixing races, cheating all the time, lying also all the time, helping me build a doomsday device, responsible for the deaths of seventy eight dogs before he killed Charlie and twenty five afterwards before he was swallowed by a big lipped alligator. He’s killed a hundred and twenty one innocent humans through engineered accidents in the era of Anne Marie, forty percent of them were children, twenty nine percent were teenagers and the rest were adults. Of the humans that weren’t innocent that he killed, there were seven and I can honestly say they really deserved what happened to them as one of them was a serial killer and another was a rapist who managed to reach thirty victims before he was struck with a piano. We in the underworld call those happy accidents and this isn’t even a fourth of the things he’s done. There was also puppy trafficking, but a dog named Flo saved them for the Pound Puppy organization. She was reincarnated to be as beautiful as her soul is, so… how do you feel about being hit on by a demon, you hot dog you?” “Yeah, I’m a little confused about that as… wait, I did that?” Was Sasha’s response to the puppies she saved in the past, she shivered at the salacious look Belladonna sent her. “Also, I’m now afraid of you for entirely different reasons than just because you’re a demon.” “She’s just attracted to good guys and will only do things you allow her to. She’s in the closet about it all the time.” It took Annabelle a while to convince Belladonna into doing some things she wanted to do and Annabelle herself was into tying her partner up. Who knew a demon could be so chaste about things? “Who is this Carface you’re talking about? He doesn’t sound very nice.” Fluttershy could only hope that nothing bad would happen to Felicia on her way to Sasha’s café and tavern. Maybe she should mention that her friend, who was a humanoid cat, was coming here to a place full of dogs. Why is it now that she could suddenly see all the bad things that will happen when she does arrive? It would be far worse if she doesn’t arrive, she can at least stop the dogs from being a problem with a stare. “Oh he’s not nice at all, but he’s been working on it recently. All dogs go straight to heaven you see, no matter how they live. Some dogs can opt for underworld duty; Belladonna here did so because she was a lot tougher than most and could handle it. Mr. Caruthers was a pretty bad dog all around, but we still let him in even if he should have gone immediately to the underworld for everything he did.” Annabelle had watched for several minutes as Belladonna tried to rid herself of the little filly, the demon failed horribly each time. The one know as Virgil handled the filly awkwardly, the filly cuddled her mother with unconditional love and she liked Sasha well enough, but it seemed Soft Echo had her heart set on cuddling up to Belladonna. “That was when he stole the horn of openings which led to an incident with Red.” “Yep and I’m a well adjusted member of society compared to him.” Belladonna saying it with a completely straight face did not diminish Sasha’s horror one bit when she smiled at her. The little bloodsucker was still attached to her back between her wings and she was falling asleep there, why was she so interesting to the darn thing? Thinking on it, the little filly did remind Belladonna of a really cute horse version of a succubus. All she wanted to do was get a drink, why was it so hard to get one without things getting in the way? “Can someone relieve me of this little tick on my back?” “She really seems to like you though and she looks too peaceful to disturb.” The demon just stared Fluttershy in the eyes and she didn’t back down at the stare. This earned her some respect from the dark looking canine with the overly pointy teeth; turning to the proprietor she just had to ask. “Sasha is there a bathroom here? I’m sorry for asking this, but I really need to go.” “We have hydrants and regular toilets for number 2, that door over there. Wash your legs before you leave though. I run a mostly clean establishment here; even if I did establish it in an alleyway.” Seeing the slightly green look on the pony’s face Sasha decided to add. “Yes, dogs do drink from those toilets so it’s a good idea to flush. They are cleaned out each week so don’t worry about it too much, just don’t go near the fire hydrants and don’t even ask how we got them installed in there.” After having gone to the bathroom that was half meant for dogs, Fluttershy had made sure to clean her hooves thoroughly before leaving. She came back to see Belladonna trying to ignore the sleeping filly snuggly wrapped around her left wing, she sighed at the adorable sight before sitting back down. “And that’s why I rarely, if ever, do windows.” Annabelle had a captive and ill looking audience. “To think people call demons unsanitary.” It was Belladonna’s response to whatever it was Fluttershy just missed hearing about, she didn’t seem to be trying to rid herself of Soft Echo anymore. “Things seem to be going well here.” Fluttershy closed her eyes and focused, the two memory stones appeared in her hoof again. “Are you doing okay Felicia?” - “Not really, I’m kind of in the middle of something here Fluttershy.” What Felicia was busy with were tons of little red demons with pitchforks and she was blasting them back with the energy she flung from her hands in a rapid manner. She was on the run and as she passed through an alleyway a bunch of lanky looking shadows attacked her; she fended them off with large blast of energy from both her hands slapping against the ground creating a shockwave that shredded every demon within twenty feet of her. The Aldebaran was wearing the average style of Aldebaran armor, a tiara with a memory stone and two focusing stones in the gauntlets that helped to channel magic through her hands. Her master Jenny had the ability to use three focusing stones at once and then there were the highest level of Aldebaran’s who can focus their magic without the aid like her grandmother Katrina. Princess Felecia was an average level magic user in Aldebaran terms of control, but she did have a lot of capacity to make up for it. Even then she was tiring as she didn’t have the endurance to use her full magical might all in one go unless she had other Aldebaran’s giving her their strength. Running out of the alleyway with the cloak swirling around her and her hands glowing slightly, Felicia looked left and right around the street. It was way too quiet and she didn’t see any humans around. “Fluttershy… I might need you to come to me. I’m being hunted and I’ve been constantly fighting off demons minutes into arriving in San Francisco.” Usually it was the other way around with the Aldebaran’s being the hunters, Felicia recognized the quiet street for what it was and that she was likely surrounded on all sides. Looking up to the roofs of the buildings confirmed her theory. “And I think I just might have just run straight into a trap, there is a really powerful demon behind this and I think it’s trying to wear me down.” There were a lot of the little red demons and the shadows themselves were attacking her, there were also a few other kinds that started climbing down the walls. They were angling towards Felicia as she slowly moved backwards into the middle of the intersection. “I’m going to need some help…” Felicia lit her hands up brighter, she hadn’t had this much trouble since the robot that had a twisted toads flesh fused into its metal construction woke up the giant demon. The street started to grow dark around her as the shadows started to creep closer to her. - “I must be cursed.” Again Belladonna was complaining about the fruit bat filly now snuggled upside down under her left wing snoring softly, the little tyke was driving her batty and she couldn’t do a thing single thing to stop the filly from cuddling up to her. Well she could take another shot of alcohol; it was one of things keeping her calm aside from Annabelle’s watchful eyes filled with humor about her situation. “What did I do to deserve this kind of punishment?” “I’m sorry to ask this of you, but it’s an emergency. Could either of you please watch out for my daughter for me? I have something really important that I must do and quickly.” Fluttershy hadn’t left Soft Echo alone by herself for a long time as she was rather clingy, but the filly looked safe in the wing of the friendly demon. “Soft Echo really likes fruit and she should be asleep for a short while, if anything happens to me will all of you take care of her?” “Of course we will.” As usual Annabelle didn’t see a problem with volunteering herself and someone else to do something nice, such as looking out for a little child. As an angel dog Annabelle loved children, whereas she knew Belladonna disliked them with a passion even if she was doing a pretty good job of keeping Soft Echo comfortable. “I hate you so much right now.” Muttered a rather irate Belladonna who direly wanted the filly to stop snuggling her, she was nobodies cuddle toy! “I’ll try to be back as quickly as I can, but if I’m not back within an hour can you please come looking for me?” Receiving a nod from the angelic dog, Fluttershy flared her wings and took to the air and flew above the rooftops surrounding the alleyway place for dogs. “Now which way do I go though? Oh…” - San Francisco was brightly lit in many places except for one spot where the clouds were swirling with darkness and the area didn’t seem to let any light out of it. It was quite obvious to Fluttershy where Felicia had gotten stuck, it was pretty close too. Sighing to herself, Fluttershy flew off for that spot and hovered above the area. Landing in this area would have been a one way ticket to pain, as she saw Felicia holding off swarms of what had to be demons given their grotesque or evil appearances. Felicia’s cloak was in tatters, the armor beneath it was impeccably clean and unblemished despite the damage her cloak had taken. She was in the middle of ripping a little red mouse sized demon off of her shoulder and she blasted it straight into the crowd surrounding her where it exploded taking a few other demons with it. They held a large circle around her, but no more approached. She was watching the shadows just as carefully as she was her surroundings. Fluttershy stayed well above the mass of writhing violent creatures and wondered why they had stopped attacking Felicia. “It’s obvious to me now that my minions are useless against you. Why send a pack of pathetic demons like these to do a real demons job after all?” It was a tall cat shaped figure, heavily muscular and covered in thick, coarse, blood red fur. Its yellow eyes stared devilishly at Felicia as it stalked through the path made by the other demons under his thrall. “It seems I’ve found both the cause and the fix for the paradox in one place, I’m not about to let you fix this.” “Who are you?” Felicia didn’t like the sound of an intelligent demon, intelligent demons were rare on Aldebaran and ones that were intelligent were not to be trifled with. The fact that he looked like an oversized male humanoid cat of her species made Felicia quite wary of him immediately. Red just chuckled to himself and with a quick leap he slapped Felicia towards the nearest wall back first. Instead of slumping to the ground, she was still standing if shakily on both her feet as she blasted away the demons attempting to take her down while she was slightly dazed. Her thick mass of soft blue hair had cushioned her impact with the wall quite well. Fluttershy didn’t have any idea what to do, she was too afraid to fly too close to the ground. Her options were taken from her when a claw gripped her tail and pulled her from the air. She slapped against the red demons chest, getting hurt in the process as it felt like she just slammed into a brick wall. The large red demon had jumped high enough to pluck her out of the air and his hand was now wrapped tightly around her throat. “No you don’t!” Felicia quickly tore through an entire wave of demons and attacked Red directly, the demon actually winced and stumbled back a bit as Felicia struck him across the chest with her claws. She was trying to get him to drop Fluttershy. The pony was still in Red’s grip and her vision was slowly blurring, as his gripped tightened and he sent a claw at the Aldebaran who blocked it and threw a magic filled right hook across the demons face staggering him. Fluttershy tried desperately to slap at the arm holding her with her hooves, but she soon blacked out and her last sight before falling unconscious was a battered groaning Felicia being lifted up by her hair in the other hand of the demon. - Red disappeared with flash of energy holding up his two prisoners as trophies while laughing in victory. “Did you see that Itch? That was Red! We’ve got to go after him!” Said the bigger of the two dogs watching as Red disappeared with two beings that were obviously just taken captive. “No Charlie, who or what were those two that Red grabbed? They looked weird and one of them was fighting against Red. We should really tell Annabelle about this immediately!”The shorter dog with equally short legs wore a green shirt and had a red hat whose name was Itchy looked at Charlie hoping that he would listen to reason this time. “Right, but who knows where she is at this time? With Red is on the loose then we’d better call on Annabelle at the Flea Bite. Come on, the barrier around that place should be demon proof. It sounds like we need a miracle right about now with him running around.” Charlie had become used to being a wild rogue among good dogs of all kinds, his best friend Itchy would always at as his conscience and this time he would let his friend be his guide. - The two dogs ran into the Flea Bite and were about to call Annabelle when they saw that Annabelle was already there and so was someone else who was sitting at the counter next to her drinking alcohol. “Belladonna what are you doing here?” Itchy felt he had a right to be cross with the demon dog after all she’s done. “She’s honestly just getting a drink; don’t worry about her she is absolutely up to nothing at the moment. Why do you two look so panicked?” It was only now that the two dogs noticed Annabelle was sitting right next to Belladonna. “Before you ask yes the barrier is still up Charles and it is functioning properly, of that I am certain.” “So what’s gotten dumb and dumber in a bind this time? I can only wonder.” Picking up a bottle Belladonna upended half the fluids down her throat in one go. “Look, we just saw Red and he said he’s found the cause of the problem and the one who could fix it.” Charlie started off trying to ignore the demon dog sitting at the counter. “Yeah and he grabbed this human cat thing that was fighting off the demons and pulled this yellow four legged horse thing out of the air that looked like an angel!” Itchy was quite worried as a demon grabbing anyone was never a good thing. “Oh for the love, please tell me I’m not going to be the one stuck with this little thing clinging to me forever!” Belladonna’s raised voice didn’t even cause the upside down bat filly to stir one bit. - Luna watched a little confused as the two fillies frolicked with one another; she shrugged as the child was probably just dreaming of having friends that looked like her. It didn’t register to her that the two fillies might both be real. The dream had a strange yet happy purple dog come up to them to drop a ball on the ground wagging her tail. It was a cute and simple little dream of fillies playing fetch with a dog, so she just let Soft Echo be and went back to the crystal gems, Fluttershy and the others. - “Of course not Belladonna, I would not leave you alone to raise a child. Why that would just turn into a complete disaster.” Shaking her head while laughing, Annabelle soon took on a thoughtful look and then became serious. “Look Belladonna, if you don’t want to be saddled with the responsibility for the adorable little dear that obviously likes you for the rest of your immortal life, then you might as well give us an idea as to where Red could have gone. He's not dumb enough to base himself in Alcatraz again.”