//------------------------------// // 114 // Story: Yonder Wandered Fluttershy // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// Foxglove’s song had been rather nice and uplifting for a whole lot of people, the bat really could sing in Japanese well enough. The one line that really got to Fluttershy was the one about ‘smiling despite knowing that things were bad and likely getting worse’, it kind of touched a lot of people in the audience who had lives just as hectic as Ranma’s in the area of Nerima which was always plagued by chaos. It surprised a lot of people that she didn’t just screech a lot and that being a bat did not make her bad at singing or tone death, in fact her tone was really quite spot on. Fluttershy was a bit upset that Foxglove didn’t really win, but she was surprised at how good Agumon and a cute little pink bird named Biyomon did. They were strange creatures, but just as viable in the contest and sung a remarkable duet that barely topped Foxglove’s amazing performance and aerial dance routine with the microphone. The creature known as Agumon looked embarrassed about winning while the pink bird cuddled the short yellow dinosaur. Shaking her head Fluttershy started writing things down, the contest she was in didn’t need her to focus on it all that much and if she for whatever reason won and couldn’t accept the prize she could have someone accept it for her. So she wrote down Tendo Kasumi as the one to receive the prize if she wasn’t available to receive it. It was rather nice of the convention people to let you give your prize to whoever you wanted to, Fluttershy didn’t know if she would be around to receive the prize because it would take a month or two for the grand or second place prizes to actually be finished whatever that meant, but the winners would be announced before the convention ended. What Fluttershy was writing was the concept of her story at the moment. She was doing this while she and her friend wandered around picking up free souvenirs from around the convention, martial arts T-shirts, free manga sample from the anime portion of the convention and even a little sidetrack into the science fiction part to see some of the stranger aliens that were huge science fiction fans despite being capable of interstellar travel. She guessed humans were really quite inventive when it came to imaginative stories and stuff like that, as much as Japan was at coming up with really odd stuff thus far. “What a haul, Jackpot!” An old looking gnome like creature yelled as Fluttershy’s group and Ranma walked by a machine that sold used underwear. “Well at least I know Happosai isn’t going to be bothering me today. The letch is actually one of the best martial artists here, but he’s a huge pervert.” Ranma just shook his head ruefully as he watched Happosai danced as he spent more money on the machine, it was like the machine was designed with him in mind. Again Japan came up with really odd stuff, stuff which Fluttershy didn’t understand or have inkling as to why it existed. Like why would the strange little man thing be so highly interested in worn clothing, aside from it being unsanitary maybe Fluttershy was missing some cultural significance there. However Ranma mentioning that she knew the guy gave her pause, nobody knew what had happened to the fiancés after Bonnie had beaten them. Although with the Sumo Ninjas nearby, one could only guess. - Thinking about what else to write down as a story idea, Fluttershy was led to a massive food court where many people congregated. It was time for lunch and she could flesh out her idea some more over some Japanese cuisine. So far she had a character and an idea as to what they would be doing and how that character would go about solving problems seemed oddly familiar to her. Her character wasn’t a strong or courageous hero; it was a simple pony that solved problems with empathy or great willpower despite a constant healthy fear of a lot of things. “You might not have won Foxy, but you gave them a great show out there. The strange dinosaur and bird duo almost didn’t top your performance. So what was the prize for second place the singing contest again?” Bonnie was eating some fried dango on a stick a rather sweet and slightly salty snack food that was quite delectable and usually seen as desert, looking to Fluttershy she could see the pony using a fork for her large plate of vegetables. “At least the convention people thought of everything when it came to people who can’t use chopsticks.” “Well a cash prize, which I can use to make purchases through mail order. The other thing is a signed photograph from some famous singer.” Shrugging, the little bat smiled at them, it was fun for Foxglove at the very least. “I’ll have proof that I actually did something like this when I tell the story to my friends. I wonder if Monterey knows anyone in the area. I’ll be sure to ask him when I get home; do you think I can get a ride there?” “Of course you can get a ride Foxglove. I think Betty and Samus are open to the idea of helping us and not just because of my ambassador status. They are just a genuinely nice people.” It was nice to have lunch among friends, there were still quite a few other events Fluttershy or the others weren’t participating in. The story idea event was one that had a grand prize she didn’t care much for, but she didn’t want to be the only one not participating in some event. She blushed slightly at her excitement to see the rest of the convention without interference. “So what are we going to do next? Oh listen to me; I’m actually not being very shy despite so many people being around me.” “Hey, you’re surrounded by friends; you’ve got no reason to be shy with us around.” After a moment Donna actually felt a bit shocked with herself for admitting that she was Fluttershy’s friend. Sure she was the snuggly little ticks familiar, but that didn’t mean she had to be friendly with anyone else. She continued to read her graphic novel about romantic artificial intelligences popping out of the computers and breaking reality. Feeling something bump up against her, the puppy turned to Soft Echo who gave her a bright smile while squeaking. “Alright already, yes I’m your puppy, I get it. Now stop trying to give me and everyone a heart attack through sheer unleaded adorable like your mother does on a regular basis.” “Um, what do you mean?” For the life of her Fluttershy had no idea what Donna meant. “Look behind you Sweet Cheeks.” It had been happening with a large relatively large and alarming frequency; Bonnie honestly thought Fluttershy would have noticed by now. The pony looked behind her and saw a person stopped to look at Soft Echo and her. After a moment the person started clutching at their heart and fell to the ground. Within seconds Hiei arrived with a defibrillator and shocked the person back to life. “Do I have to follow your group around all day? This thing is almost out of battery power and it’ll take me a whole minute to get a new battery.” Hiei muttered angrily, he had to revive seventy three people because some who saw Fluttershy’s group couldn’t help but have heart failures from the concentrated cuteness. Soft Echo was cute on her own with her soft pink fur, choppy looking red hair, small body and large bright purple eyes, Donna had her own level of cute going when she was in the midst of reading a graphic novel at the table, Fluttershy and Foxglove didn’t need an explanation as they were both shy beautiful creatures and then there was Bonnie as she was created to look disarmingly cute and cuddly. “Excuse me; is this the group with a Soft Echo and Donnabelle, as in the ones taking place in the cute contest later on?” The tall rather average looking man with short brown hair and the letters ‘Jr’ on his forehead approached the five eating beings and the one gender flipping human at the table. “Yes, that would be my daughter and her puppy. Is there something wrong?” With all the heart attacks that she had accidentally been causing Fluttershy almost expected to be thrown out of the convention, she hadn’t realized that her group had been doing something so horrible without really trying. “No, nothing’s wrong, it’s just that they won first place in that contest and don’t have to actually show up. Whoever sticks around is fighting for second place though; the reason for this is because we don’t want everyone in the building to die from them actively acting cute for an audience.” The man set down a full stack of manga and the cash prize. “Here’s the grand prize for the contest, please don’t show up on stage for the safety of everyone at the convention. We don’t want a massacre by cuteness, though it wouldn’t be a bad way to die. At least if I die I won’t get stuck with the paperwork and it’d all go to Yusuke and Botan.” “I love you so much my little tick.” Donnabelle immediately pulled Soft Echo into an affectionate hug for winning her those graphic novels without even trying, this was unfortunately too much for the man and he had a heart attack much to Fluttershy’s visible worry. “Damn it all, stop doing that to people!” Hiei yelled as he disappeared with a flicker as the defibrillator had lost its charge entirely when he tried to rub the two pads together. Fluttershy immediately spilled out some water and created a cloud, she split it in half and wrapped it around her two hooves and started rubbing the bits of cloud together and doing what Rainbow told her to do to get the cloud gloves to charge up. While she was doing this Bonnie quickly got the man’s chest exposed seeing where Fluttershy was going with this. Nodding her thanks to Bonnie, she quickly slammed both hooves into the man’s chest and he started gasping for air and took one long look at Fluttershy’s worried and adorable visage and went into a second heart attack. Thankfully the man wouldn’t go into a third heart attack after Hiei came back to revive him and scared the wits out of him with a dark pressuring force, using his very own intent to counter the cheery cutesy nature of Fluttershy and her friends. “Thank you Hiei. Sorry, about all this and for worrying you. I hope you understand my reasoning for vacating the area swiftly.” The man stood up and staggered away slightly smoking from being zapped harshly twice. Hiei just stood by shaking his head sourly. - Fluttershy was almost done putting notes down on the note pad; she could turn it in real soon and would do so once she was sure her idea was a solid one and she had several small stories written down that would go with the main overarching story idea. She was going to still watch the cute contest, even if she wouldn’t be seeing Soft Echo and Donna on stage for health related reasons. Apparently Mr. Koenma really didn’t like the idea of so many people dying of heart failures in one spot and Fluttershy wasn’t exactly happy with the idea of it happening either. The contest was definitely its namesake; many a cute creature went up to do something adorable to win the crowd over for second place. Foxglove, Fluttershy and Soft Echo liked it, but Donna didn’t and just kept her nose in a graphic novel and Bonnie just lazed about not really interested in the competition. The flying turtle Tama-chan had joined this particular event and was winning over a lot of the crowd with his antics. Fluttershy cheered for the flying turtle since she was friends with him. While Ranma just shrugged at some of the things he saw, he had disappeared entirely when a critter named Gatomon took the stage with a teenage girl name Kari. Gatomon looked like a bipedal cat that wore gloves, so Ranma’s disappearance wasn’t hard to understand. After the cute event was over with, Fluttershy and others wandered around looking over the other events into the evening. Dancing, martial arts tea ceremony, design your own robot contest and things of that nature were happening in all three parts of the convention. At some point Fluttershy turned in her entry for the story idea contest and quickly forgot about it, the winner would be declared tomorrow at the end of the convention. Upon coming up to a stand Fluttershy saw the blue robot thing she had seen twice before and decided to meet with him. If nothing more than for curiosities sake since she had wondered what he was selling at the convention, speaking of selling stuff Fluttershy had quite a small stipend from Bonnie winning the Rose Royale and was looking to spend it before they had to leave Japan. Fluttershy really didn’t have much use for Japanese money and was not above buying souvenirs for her friends. “Um hello there I’m Shy Flutter, but I prefer Fluttershy what do you have here?” It looked like some kind of polish with a rock label on it was the sign for this booth and Fluttershy was curious about it, she wanted to get Maud a souvenir because she was going to Miss Pearl a lot if what she’s been hearing is correct. “Hello Fluttershy, I’m Doraemon the gadget cat robot of the future! What you see before you is Pet Polish. If you have a pet rock, this will make them mobile and more exciting. Comes with a free leash, the rocks will start eating sand and drinking water once applied and the average active lifespan is expected to be twenty to five hundred years depending on how well you take care of them. If immortal that could become indefinitely.” His futuristic spiel and selling some of the more easily acquirable gadgets on him was something Doraemon was doing for his friend, he had to pay for a couch destroyed by a blob monster and needed the money. “It is a good idea to not let your rock overfeed. So would you like to buy a one use tube of it?” Fluttershy looked to Bonnie who was the one who understood the currency better than she did, she wondered if rock farms would have been more popular if the rocks were actually mobile. She knew Pinkie would have liked a pet rock back when she lived on her boring old farm, which actually made her think of Maud Pie again. “Does this stuff actually even work?” In answer to Bonnie’s question, Doraemon pulled out a cage with a barking rock that ran around inside of it. He even took a regular rock out and demonstrated by polishing it in front of them; they watched as it came to life and started to playfully wrestle with the other rock when he put it in the cage. “Yeah, I guess it works. We’ll take one.” “I know this might be a touchy subject and I’m sorry if it is so you don’t have to answer, but what happened to your ears if you’re supposed to be a cat?” The robot just smiled wanly at Fluttershy making her wonder if she might have asked the wrong thing. “It’s a long story, it involves robotic mouse chewing them off and then having them removed entirely from my body. I got over it and I’m doing better nowadays, I can even talk about it and laugh when I look back on what happened.” The blue and white cat robot without ears just gave a bright smile and waved at them as they walked off. “Can you please do me a small favor? When you go outside, tell the green haired lady to ‘stop living in the past, it’s a new generation’. Also tell her to look for a Time Lord over the next few days and mention that things will work themselves out from there. Anyway, it’s been nice meeting you again Fluttershy; you ponies are always so friendly. Oh and tell Applejack and Rainbow Dash I said ‘hello’ when you see them!” Fluttershy looked over her shoulder at Doraemon’s rather odd statement, what was odder was that he somehow had known who Applejack and Rainbow Dash were. She never recalled seeing anything like Doraemon on planet Equus before. “I’m so glad they fixed the bugs when it came to time traveling, at least the Time Lord eventually stopped causing demon outbreaks.” Doraemon’s comment went unheard as he continued to try and sell his inconsequential odds. - Yawning as she walked out of the convention that evening with saddlebags loaded with souvenirs, Fluttershy came upon a familiar trio arguing with a tall lady with green hair down to her knees wielding a staff. That lady reminded her of Celestia and Luna in stature, she also gave off this strange air that said she was quite ancient. She looked to be in a rather heated argument with Haruka. “Look Pluto, we’re going to continue fighting Youma, but darn you if you think we’re going to carry out your stupid plans Ms. I can be in two places at once!” Haruka and Sailor Pluto had been at it since they walked out the convention doors to be met by the watcher herself. “We are supposed to be allies united under a…” Sailor Pluto stopped upon sight of Fluttershy who walked up to her with her group. “I’m very sorry for interrupting. Somebody said that you have to stop living in the past and that it’s a new generation. Oh and look for a Time Lord over the next few days, everything should work itself out from there.” When you met strangers that seem to know what your species were and asked a favor of you while knowing the names of your friends, Fluttershy figured you may as well do it. Besides he asked nicely and Fluttershy was now waiting one the flying turtle escort service to carry them back to their free apartment. Tama-chan floated up next to the group standing around and started to get playful with Soft Echo, who galloped around chasing the flying turtle having forgotten that she herself could fly. Donnabelle was still perusing her haul which she had her own sack for, Bonnie was checking her Valkyrian laser blasters and Foxglove was idly hanging from a nearby lamp post snapping at insects that flew too close to her. Watching from the sidelines was a confused Pluto, she didn’t have any inkling as to why someone would tell her that, but the word Time Lord sent a shiver down here spine and she immediately warped herself back to the time gate. She might not be able to view the possible futures at the moment, but she could still see the past that already happened. She was Sailor Pluto the defender of the time gate and someone just made an implied threat on her domain. Incidentally Sailor Pluto had left Haruka, Michiru and Hotaru to their own devices since she disappeared on them, the course Pluto was trying to divert the time stream back to seemed to of have set itself in stone right then and there. It was sad to say that the Sailor Warrior of Time was her own worst enemy and she did in fact meet a lord of time, it turned out pretty well in the end. “Is the c-c-cc-demon gone?” A very nervous Ranma hung from a different post than the one Foxglove took to. “It’s okay Ranma; no cat will hurt you while we’re around. Come on down, please?” Fluttershy managed to coax her down in time for the Mechanical Flying Turtle Carriage to arrive. Japan didn’t seem too overly hectic, even with the weirdness factor at an all time high. “Come with us, you can get a nice dinner and a good night’s sleep away from all your troubles. You just need to stay a girl for a while since our apartments has a no boy’s policy.” “Thanks for helping me out guys, so this is what real friendship feels like. Aside from Kasumi and Ukyo I mean. Though Ukyo tends to have ulterior motives behind her friendly exterior.” The redhead really didn’t mind being a girl anymore, he had accepted the fact that he would never be rid of the curse until Fluttershy’s group came and his hope was sadly rekindled anew. Hinata House Apartments was quite welcoming of the half time girl and even listened to her story, they didn’t think ill of Ranma for naturally being a boy with a curse. Everyone at the girls’ only apartment complex had really mellowed out from their wilder days and didn’t really enforce the no men allowed rule all too hard given who their landlord was. - “So, that’s good. At least we’ll have a clear shot at getting to Hawaii tomorrow. How soon can dad personally come for us? Okay got it. Hey Fluttershy, are we going back to the convention tomorrow for the second day?” Bonnie continued to chat with one of her relatives over the phone after receiving a positive response from Fluttershy who decided to make her own call. “Discord, how are things back on Equus?” After a while she was given an answer. “Why I do believe in friendship a lot more than I used too, as friendship is positively chaotic! Also torturing invading aliens has never been so much fun. Don’t worry I’m not doing anything too horrible to them; I’m just trying to make them leave and trust me they really want to. Anyway that Star Nomad of yours recently awoke today, he’s quite the chaotic little fur ball and he’s really good with a banjo. He’s having too much fun here, he said it would take him about a week or more to reach you and I’ve already told him there were some people who needed a ride to Earth. He’s agreed to take our dear friend Pearl with him.” Discord was speaking so fast it almost sounded like he got into Celestia’s ice-cream cake stores. “Please do be a dear and pick up something nice for me, unless you’re keeping it a secret and already have something. Maybe a little bobble head toy souvenir that will agree with whatever I say?” Fluttershy could only smile at Discord’s childishness; a cute bobble head toy wouldn’t be too far out of their price range.