//------------------------------// // 112 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Fluttershy just stared up at the coming evening sky and due to Nerima’s light pollution from the night life that the humans tended to enjoy; she wouldn’t likely be seeing any stars tonight. One of which that might have been Celestia’s distant sun. Hearing a squeak right next to her Fluttershy looked down to see Soft Echo press up against her, it seemed her daughter could feel her current mood and was as empathetic as she was at times. She looked so cute in the rhizome suit; it let her see what she looked like while wearing it. Looking over to Bonnie who was on the cell phone they heard her exclaim something in a shocked tone, after a second or two she sighed and closed the phone before coming over to them. “I have best news, good news, strange news, bad news and awful news. Which comes first?” Bonnie stated dryly as she came up to Fluttershy and Soft Echo sitting on a bench outside the convention center. They had been waiting here for a while and just watched as Nerima devolved into chaos every other minute. Not one street corner had any sense of normalcy for more than thirty minutes at a time. “So is the good news that we can stick around for the freebie Manga at the convention?” Donna said seeing nothing but the complete bright side to sticking around Japan, the puppy’s tail was positively waggling itself into an alternate dimension. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sticking around for the conventions tournament. I might actually get so time to myself for once without anyone interrupting it trying to kill me.” Ranma was getting to know his clan and even partook of their gratuitous servings of food. He was termed as an ‘Ever Thin’ clan member and it was because all the food he ate went into becoming spirit energy instead of turning into fat, this was actually not uncommon among Sumo Ninjas. It just meant Ranma healed at an accelerated rate, whereas the ninjas who were sumo sized were less likely to be hurt in the first place and everything else was about even in capability. “Get it over with Bonnie, worst to best news.” Fluttershy ran her hoof over Soft’s red mane causing the filly to coo with affection at the touch. “Awful news, Hawaii was attacked by the Valkyrians. Strange news, no one got hurt in the attack except for the Valkyrians and no one died despite a small part of the Kokaua Town going up in flames. My family must have been batting a thousand today and I don’t just mean my brother Slugger.” Once again Bonnie would explain the function of one of her family members; Slugger was a rather avid baseball fan who could launch any projectile back at the shooter with extreme accuracy and velocity. “Bad news, while my family managed to bring down the Valkyrians main ship and capture all of them for MIB detainment, Samus and Betty are going to have a few problems with meeting up with us without their ships being in an operational enough condition and there are not any active spaceships currently in Hawaii. Just to note, it would cost a lot for us to ride a boat or an airplane out of the country and there are plenty of reasons why people won’t give us a ride all collectively together like we are. Good news, my father can make the repairs to Betty and Samus’s ship. Best news, though a bit creepy, someone hacked my phone and sent me a message that says we’re to be given free room and board if we need a place to stay tonight just as I found out we’re stuck here. They said they’d give us a ride when we need it by calling a number and it came along with this picture.” Holding up the phone Fluttershy saw the picture of a robotic turtle, the very odd one that had snuggled her when they first beamed down to Japan. It was while Betty went to check on the situation in Hawaii to make sure Samus made it there without any trouble. “Well that’s nice, I think… I guess we’ll be here for the convention until either Betty or Samus can come pick us up.” At least one of them was happy and it was easy for Fluttershy to tell who, especially given the reaction from a certain puppy’s happy prancing in circles. “Speaking of this convention, what are the events and wouldn’t people freak out if we went?” Foxglove felt a little left out of the conversation and wanted to be heard, she was handed a pamphlet by Ranma and Fluttershy looked over her tiny form to read along with the little bat. It was a copy that was printed in English which Fluttershy had the barest understanding of. “Oh, all friendly beings can join in any events provided the Spirit Detective League, the Nerima Martial Arts Police, the local Alien Bureau or Japan-EDF can clear the backgrounds of entrants. Beings also need to be an adult or have an adult with them to enter the events that can speak the language or at least understand it well enough. Martial Arts competitors must not use building destroying attacks for the tournaments; all other rules may be found to the particular provided events in the rest of this pamphlet.” “Well that adorability or singings contests don’t sound too bad, though I really don’t think it fits me. I’m not good in front of crowds. I’m not going near any of the martial arts competitions since I don’t like fighting… maybe I could do the design your own graphic novel story competition? I don’t actually have to be on a stage for that one.” Nobody was going to get Fluttershy to sing in front of a bunch of people. Doing it in front of animals was fine for her as it was her preferred audience; she still gets horrible stage fright. “Fluttershy you have the voice of an angel and I doubt that anyone would boo you off the stage if you were to sing anything as long as you put a nice tune to it. Anyway I know you can wrestle so how about that? Nobody gets hurt and you can just pull people into heart melting hugs, heck you or your daughter would win the adorability one with almost no competition.” The pony shied behind her long curtain of pink hair and Bonnie’s cheeks began to heat up at the sight of Fluttershy being shy like a pro. “Okay you can do the writing thing, I still want to do something interesting and I’m always up for good scrap. I like the idea of the Rose Royale, free for all and nothing females kicking ass and taking names.” “Sign me up to the adorability contest with Soft Echo.” That was surprisingly odd of Donabelle considering she didn’t like being cute and snuggly at all, she mostly tolerated it and accepted Soft Echo because she was too adorable to hate. Bonnie saw the first prize for that contest and snickered, the puppy was a closet romantic considering all the girly romance graphic novels for various ages one would win from that competition. Shaking her head, she personally was going to fight in the Rose Royale competition for sure. She might not be a martial artist, but Bonnie had the one skill that mattered in a fight and that was not getting hit. “I’ll join the singing competition, since I really have nothing better to do and it could be interesting. I think I know the perfect song for it too. As a bat you can imagine all the kinds of music I listen to, just not heavy metal.” It was a song Foxglove would dedicate to her new friend Fluttershy; it might even perk the pony up a bit since she was looking a little blue. “Well I have to get home since you guys already have a place to stay, see you guys tomorrow. Today has been a pretty good day for me.” Ranma threw his left hand in the air and waved back at them as he walked away. After a while of haggling out who would be doing what at the convention, including getting freebies and handouts which even Fluttershy wanted some of to take back home to Equus with her. “I wonder if they serve dinner at this Hinata House Apartments place.” Flipping open her phone to make the call for a pickup, Bonnie saw a new message and read it. As she typed out the number to come pick them up she told others what she just read. “Apparently we’re expected for dinner by the residences of the place while we’re staying here in Japan. I don’t know why the robot turtle likes you so much, but it must be good karma on your part Fluttershy.” Fluttershy shrugged in answer to the statement, she just does good things because they were the right thing to do. How that translates into a free place at an apartment complex and an invite to dinner because a metal turtle gave her cuddle didn’t matter to her. She was just going to accept that Nerima was ridiculous and go with the flow of things. A minute after Bonnie punched in the number, four larger flying mechanical turtles appeared carrying a carriage in their mouths and they landed before them. Nobody batted an eye at the oddity, much less the fact that a little metal flying turtle squealed and motioned to them to board the carriage when the door on it opened. Everyone in Fluttershy’s group had become accustomed to the strangeness at this point except for Soft Echo who stared at the carriage in wonderment. - The people at the Hinata House Apartments were nice, if a bit strange and more normal than all the stuff seen in Nerima. Though Fluttershy was trying to ignore the fact that Foxglove pointed out that one of the girls was magical and that the naturally occurring biological flying turtle was the oddest thing around that also liked all the newcomers equally. Apparently Tama-chan the ‘flying hot spring turtle’ was a cool dude when everyone who lived here normally thought he was a girl, exception being to the only male resident throughout the whole complex whose name was Keitaro. None of the regular residents seemed to mind the super smart magical girl name Su Kaolla in their midst that made life interesting by building dangerous robot turtles that had lasers, flamethrowers and rocket launchers. The story was that the Mecha-Tama’s got safer over time despite a few hiccups, some of them had even figure out the miraculous ability of somehow reproducing through mating despite being robots and having no biological reproductive organs whatsoever. Donnabelle mentioned that the flying robot turtles actually had souls, but none of the human residents believed her despite being an angel demon hybrid puppy with wings that talks. The human residents of this place could even speak turtle, which was a bit ridiculous in consideration to how they could be so narrow sighted about robots actually having souls and the robots even said as much themselves. Other than the small amounts of insane weirdness and high levels of ignorance, they were all relatively normal which made them that much weirder since they were highly accepting of the not so human beings suddenly taking up one of their apartments for free without questioning it. - The next day Fluttershy woke up on the nice soft bed to once again in a familiar position she usually found herself in when she slept with friends and family. Everyone was using her as a pillow; she was cuddling her daughter, Donnabelle was on top of Soft Echo and snuggling both of them, Bonnie was once again snuggled up against her rump and lastly Foxglove was in the crook of her neck soundly sleeping upside down. It was going to be another long day, at least Fluttershy enjoyed Saturdays or the pony relative term to the off day of the week where everyone took some time off to relax. She shook her body gently and everyone stirred slightly, it took them all a few minutes to get off of her. It felt so nice to be needed and considered comfortable for a good night’s sleep by everyone. They needed a ride back to the convention center from the all girls apartment complex; they would hopefully be ready for what would be another day of crazy. Finder already had a place to stay for the convention and would likely be too busy helping other people to spend time with them; he did his job with incredible efficiency and Fluttershy had apologized to him for any perceived sleight to his ability to find things. As she relaxed in the hot spring Flutttershy received a cute little visitor, the little hot spring turtle Tama-Chan was curious about her. “Hello there, aren’t you a cute little fellow?” The turtle blushed and hovered over to Fluttershy and let her pat him on the head, quite a few of the mechanical turtles also came over to be a bit overly friendly with her. Even Foxglove managed to get a nice relaxing spot next to the hot spring and was letting the springs steam air out her body of impurities. The morning would continue to be pleasant throughout breakfast for the group and then they were off for the opening of the convention. - Having arrived early, they waited for the doors to open and with the free passes they would enjoy the day as best they could. It was going to be ten minutes before the doors opened and Fluttershy was getting a little antsy about the amount of people, aliens and what looked like demons gathering. “Hey Tai, how do you think this convention will turn out and do you think I can finally get biyomon to like me?” A yellow toothy short and stout tyrannosaurus type being with green eyes inquired of his human friend who had a thick mass of brown hair on his head that almost looked like a live chicken was sitting up there. “Hey calm down Agumon, I’m sure things will turn out great, just so long as someone doesn’t try to start something.” This Tai was apparently laid back about the convention, compared to the small dinosaur creature half his size who was worried. “You just need to keep your cool dude; I think she likes you back.” At least Fluttershy wouldn’t be the weirdest thing these people have seen. She was possibly with one of the weirdest groups, but not one of the weirdest things here. She didn’t even know why it bothered her to be considered weird; here she’s practically normal compared to all the crazy stuff she saw on the way with the flying turtle carriage ride. “You, we would like to talk with you!” Someone shouted and everyone turned to two sailor suit women who were immediately pegged by everyone who looked towards them as lesbians, the young girl with them was too young to have a sexual orientation and looked friendlier if slightly embarrassed by the older two. The one pointing into the crowd was a tall woman with short cut blond hair with sapphire colors on her uniform. “Are you pointing at us? I guess the name Phoenix Wright has become popular lately.” A man wearing a business suit with slicked back spiky hair said with a smile and next to him was a curious girl that looked to be a spirit medium girl. “No, I’m not pointing at you, I’m pointing at them! That group with the four legged monster among them.” The blonde haired woman said pointed in the general direction of Fluttershy’s group while the man looked entirely downtrodden. “Do you mean us?” Looking over to Tai and Agumon, they had been joined by a white four legged monster with a red strip of mane that was with a smart looking blue haired scrawny kid with glasses. “No I’m talking about the group with the alien, the small bat, the crazy dog and the two equine creatures.” Again the blond tried while the other two behind her started cracking up at the situation, it was getting pretty funny to them. “You can’t possible mean us right?” To the left of Fluttershy’s group was a human who had red and white balls on a belt. With him were two flaming horses, a dog with a strange skull shaped protrusion on its head, a floating red creature with four red and blue tentacle limbs and a strange bat with no eyes and a large nose. “I don’t even know how I got here nor even why these Pokémon specifically are with me, could someone help me get back to Sinnoh? My GPS stopped working for some reason. Where am I even?” “Okay, just what street am I exactly on?” The blonde after getting a horrible headache finally asked to the spiky haired man from before. “’Shonen jump Street’ ma’am, it intersects with ‘Everywhere But Here Street’ and ‘Beat Em’ Up Boulevard’. I’m Phoenix Wright by the way, you wouldn’t happen to need a lawyer by any chance would you?” The man was offering to help these magical girls because it seems the beleaguered blonde one was about to do something illegal, like murdering someone in cold blood. The short haired angry looking blonde woman moved over to the girl in the purple colored clothing similar to the other two while shaking her head and muttering angrily. The girl with the short shoulder length raven hair ended up giving her a comforting hug and the tension in the older woman’s shoulders eased slightly. “Actually yes, a friend of ours has a pet cat named Luna who is an intelligent being and isn’t exactly a Japanese citizen because of both her parents being aliens, she was born in the country though. Do you think you could help with that?” The beautiful teal haired woman stepped forward to take charge of the situation, because it was already being as inconvenient as it could get, so the woman was taking the opportunity to get legal help for Sailor Moon’ s cat Luna. “Sure thing, but I’d have to talk with the client first.” Soon this Wright person and the sailor warrior worked out a scheduled meeting with Luna the cat from Mau. After they were done the teal haired lady walked up to Fluttershy’s group and kneeled down before them. “Excuse me, but can we please talk? My girlfriend Uranus is a bit angry and she knows she’s not supposed to let her blood pressure get too high, even with magical powers keeping her together.” She waited for a moment and then realized she had made a mistake. “Oh right, I’m Sailor Neptune, that over there is Sailor Saturn and my love Sailor Uranus.” “How often do people make jokes about her name and are you eventually going to marry Uranus, because I think everyone here has you two pegged as lesbians.” Now Bonnie could see that this situation was humorous in the extreme. “Yes, I’m going to marry my ‘Anus’, it’s not like I haven’t heard that joke before.” The teal haired woman groused out. “Whoa, touchy subject huh… have you ever given thought to getting her name legally changed?” It seemed like Donna was never too far behind when it came to working up a rapport with Bonnie. “Can’t, the Sailor Scouts names were set in stone centuries ago based on the nine planets of this solar system. My love is the one unfortunate enough to end up with being the literal butt of all jokes.” Sailor Neptune sighed sadly and Fluttershy gave her a strained smile. “It’s only now that I’m beginning to question that we’re soldiers reincarnate still running on millennium old rules that got all the other people in the solar system killed except for the people of Earth. The eight other planets and the moon used to be inhabitable by an ancient technologically gifted civilization that my reincarnated form came from.” “Yeah rules that old that ended up completely wiping eight planets worth of people off the map sounds like they were very helpful or conducive to the survival of civilizations because it got all the idiots killed. So why are you hunting us down like the other five girls did before we dropped a few logic bombs on them?” Turning to see more people gathering and going about their business while they waited for the convention to open, Bonnie turned to Neptune. “Also why are you bothering us specifically, Neptune was it?” “I would like to know that as well, how exactly did this old civilization end up being destroyed?” Fluttershy liked all the lore of ancient civilizations she was picking up, Star Nomads, Star Warriors, The Chozo and the like. Here was a reincarnate of a long dead civilization, after getting Donnabelle as a traveling companion it was fairly easy to believe. “Now that I think of it, I think it was hubris and not letting darkness stay balanced with the light in our lives really… you know what, screw it! We’re joining you at the convention, screw all that Crystal Tokyo crap Sailor Pluto keeps going on about!” Thus with Neptune denouncing the old order of the Silver Millennium that got trillions massacred because they let the darkness build up and ignored it for so long. “You know what Neptune… no… Michiru-chan, you’re right. Screw continuing all that stupidity, I mean really! What’s the point of foresight if Crystal Tokyo happens and forces people to be pure? I’m not going to play a part to mass genocide and continued idiocy where we can’t learn from our pasts, heck I’m betting it all ends in the extinction of humanity anyway because we won’t stop being dumbasses who believe that all the good in the world should be pure.” Sailor Uranus stood proud and marched over to Fluttershy. “Hello my name is Tenoh Haruka, nice to meet you. That’s my girlfriend Kaiou Michiru who I will eventually ask to marry me and that’s our adoptive daughter Tomoe Hotaru. We were going to cause you some trouble and possibly attack you for disrupting the future, but I thought better of it. So what kind of events are they holding here?” “Um, it’s very nice to meet you Haruka-san, this is my daughter Soft Echo.” Fluttershy might not have known the ramifications of the three sailor scouts suddenly quitting the plans of Sailor Pluto, but she had saved the world’s future population by pure happenstance of asking a single pointed question. She started introducing rest of her friends to the three and passed them the pamphlet of the conventions events.