It was two days after another run in with killer robots, at least this time she didn’t have to deal with them. At this time Fluttershy was sitting on the roof of the Hinata House Apartments looking to the sky.
“He’s on his way Fluttershy, he just had to deal with Pinkie Pie’s welcome to Ponyville party, thank you for helping out our friends party and so on and so forth. He’s quite a party animal, never doubt the power of a good party he says. Still stuck in the most interestingly chaotic place ever?” Discord really liked Nerima; he even created a third eye in his forehead just to keep watch of what was going on in the city.
“It’s been kind of pain in my flank Discord; can you see how Betty, Samus and Jumba are doing in Hawaii?” Fluttershy idly pulled out a hairbrush from her saddlebags and started working on her mane; she really needed to take better care of herself.
“I believe you’re friend Betty is already on the way, all of Bonnie’s brothers and sisters in Hawaii are in the midst of rebuilding the destroyed parts of town or at least they are trying to. All you need to do is get Clyde to yonder place and then wait for a chance to wander home from yonder. Oh and look out, there’s a giant robot about to crush you.” Discord watched as Fluttershy leapt to the side as a giant robot’s backside nearly slammed down on her, it didn’t manage to land as the mechanical turtles defended their home judiciously. They rendered the two fighting robots inoperable before they bothered anyone else and launched the fused masses to the far side of Nerima.
“Thank you!” Fluttershy went back to what she was doing after shouting to the little metal turtles that waved their flippers at her in a welcome to the thankful pony, they were really nice.
-
“I swear if we’re here for one more day I’m going to go completely insane!” Crawling her way onto the roof, Bonnie was feeling fatigued from all the crazy crap that went on around Nerima. It wasn’t bad enough with robots, demons and random monster attacks going on at every street corner at every hour of the day. The apartment they were currently taking residence in was the quietest place in Nerima and it only mostly catered to the female persuasion as being the weird thing about it. In fact that purposeful weirdness is probably what kept all the other weirdness from becoming too much for the residents who lived there. One such resident wanted to take over the world with technology despite being from the magical side of the Earth; however she believed her greatest nemesis to be a flying turtle so it was a toss up to how far she would get with the world conquering schemes given she kept trying to make mechanical turtles that would represent how dangerous she saw the actual biological flying turtle.
“I don’t care what you guys say, I love Japan!” Donnabelle flicked a paw and sent a burning halo over her shoulder spiraling at a carrot monster that was diced by the explosion of blades the halo caused after it dug its way into the center of the monster. She didn’t even look up from her graphic novel, she was so calm with Soft Echo snuggled into her side and looking at the nifty pictures in the book.
Soft Echo was enjoying the peace and quiet, except for the carrot monster… which she promptly got up to eat a still warm chunk of before cuddling back up with her really smart puppy.
“Betty is on her way, we have to get our stuff together. So, do you think Ranma will be okay with being abducted? I mean I don’t want to bother him, it’s just that he really seems unhappy here.” Tapping her hooves together shyly as she looked over the edge of the roof, Fluttershy looked up at the sky and saw a unicorn shaped cloud pass by.
“Oh I’m sure he won’t mind. I watched him all day yesterday; he definitely needs cosmic intervention of the greatest sort. It’ll be so good to get out of Nerima, I thought the Rescue Rangers ran into ridiculous things but Nerima is positively beyond anything they are capable of getting involved in. I hope to never have to come back to here, because I don’t think anyone can solve all these problems.” Nobody wanted to mention Foxglove looked a little unhinged after the incident yesterday that involved a giant moth the size of a skyscraper almost eating her.
-
Gathering their stuff, Betty arrived in a beam of light having beamed down upon locating Fluttershy and her group along with Finder who decided to keep Bonnie company and to make sure that Clyde couldn’t be lost. She had their stuff beamed up after everyone said their goodbyes to the mechanical turtles and Tama-chan.
“So anything to do before we head to Hawaii, I mean like some place you just need to stop by before we leave.” Betty immediately took to the captain’s chair while the others sat on the floor like last time. “X-Five, please see to it we get some folding chairs for future visitors.”
“I’ll get to it when an opportunity presents itself captain.” X-Five hovered over to Fluttershy and gave her a big hug, before going about his duties.
“Well at least the more sentient robots like you.” Of that Bonnie had no doubt with those mechanical turtles protecting Fluttershy at all times, especially when they heard robots were attacking the convention center. The robot turtles easily decimated the Bebe robots and not a single one escaped their wrath.
“Actually there is one thing I want to do… It’s a bit odd, but please hear me out Captain Betty.” Taking in a breath and thinking really hard on whether or not to do it, Fluttershy made a decision. “I would like you to abduct someone who’s in a bad situation.”
-
“Ranma you horrible pervert! How dare you get into bestiality and become a pedophile?” Tendo Akane pulled out her mallet to beat the utter perversion out of Ranma, she was referring to Soft Echo and Donnabelle when it came to the pedophile comment.
This was despite Ranma having no bad intentions whatsoever when he befriended Fluttershy and all her friends, at least Kuno Tatewaki couldn’t get out of jail this time even with the Kuno fortune. Sure they were female, but none of them garnered a strange instant lust for him from out of nowhere, not even a platonic relationship which would be a little more intimate than friendship.
So Ranma stood there and waited for the hammer to fall and he continued to waiting until someone splashed him with tiny amount of water and she suddenly found herself in a strange place. She also saw Fluttershy giving her a sad smile.
“Can they really blame you for being abducted by aliens?” Fluttershy asked sweetly if a bit nervous.
“They can sure as hell try to find a way to blame this one on me!” Ranma said with a hint of humor in her voice.
“Can we make just one more stop before heading straight to Hawaii? If you don’t mind that I make a request as well?” Hey, Foxglove figured if Betty was taking requests then she might as well have her pick up someone else.
Betty’s ship turned to pick someone else up and beamed him up as well. It was a surprised looking Kurama who saw everyone and just nodded before putting his rose back behind his ear.
“I guess this is my ride to New York then?” The ship shot off with Kurama also in tow, to a different section of Nerima to pick up some more people.
If Betty had to make a stop by New York to drop off Foxglove and her demon friend, then she may as well pick up a few more people. Kurama would have to get back to Japan on his own however.
-
Kokaua Town came into view on the ships screen. Betty had seen all the experiments running around trying to help rebuild, but they weren’t exactly carpenters or experts in building houses.
Since Betty was already in the business of abducting people already, she just went ahead and abducted half the Nerima Construction Crew to help out in Hawaii. They didn’t mind the abduction as it wasn’t the first time their construction skills were needed; they were also capable of fixing broken spaceships as well given how often alien’s crash landed in Nerima. If Jumba hadn’t figured out the problem with the Head Hunter by now then these guys would be able to fix it.
-
The ship came in for a landing outside the Pelekai residence, their landing was met with hundreds of worried experiments and a sad looking Lilo. The Nerima Construction Crew immediately set out to rebuild Kokaua Town.
“Jumba they’re here!” Lilo said almost immediately as Bonnie and Finder descended the ramp.
“Okay who spilled the beans? No I’m not blaming you Uncanny; I know you wouldn’t do something like that.” An experiment that looked like a living can opener frowned only further, as Bonnie pulled out Clyde’s pod and moved forward. “Come on let’s go see what the damage is to one of our Ohana. Make way coming through, dad needs to operate soon! Foxglove I believe I will be in need of your services, so come on. Let’s see what the damage is.”
Fluttershy stood by shyly with so many of Bonnie’s brothers and sisters here, they turned to and welcomed her warmly if a bit muted from hearing about Clyde’s current situation as a death knelled experiment.
-
“Is taking a quite a while, is extensively damaged. Is not beyond saving however, loss of memory is certainty. He is being alright now in my capable hands. Bonnie, go be spending some time with friends okay? Am not liking daughter sad about siblings condition, I would like to work in silence and peace. To be giving me a few days before you check back in, he will not be able to deteriorate any further under my care.” It made Jumba a little happy to see that he could even remotely cheer Bonnie up by calling her by her given name instead of a number. “Am thinking I am evil, but this. This is a great travesty to one of my own family, but hopefully recent scientific developments by me will restore Clyde to mostly previous self, probably better as in before loss of arm.”
“So how did you manage to down that Valkyrian ship thing?” Looking on at an image Foxglove tried not to throw up even as her face turned bright green at the image on the computer screen.
Even Fluttershy was having problems with keeping her vomit down at the screen showing sections of spinal cord, ripped sinew, scarred flesh and exposed organs. It was twisted and macabre sight; it was even a surprise that Clyde had even managed to talk if that was the state he was in when Bonnie met him. He must have a willpower and spirit beyond reasoning to have kept sane or even conscious in that state, plus it didn’t even look like his mouth could work not even taking into consideration his vocal chords were barely intact to begin with.
“Six zero seven, Launch, rammed body through rear of invaders main ship, causing it to crash and all other children be fighting with their abilities to their fullest. They even did some things that even surprise even me and I was the one who created them. Fighters were bit of a problem, but eh… not too hard to be dealing with. Now to the be going with all of you.” Shooing off all the watchers Jumba turned back to the screen and held a hand out towards the twisted thing that was almost a corpse in a sad manner.
“You better come back to us in a good enough state Clyde.” With those parting words, Bonnie felt Fluttershy encompass her in a hug and then led her out of the room. The door locked behind them. “I got him this far, it’s about time I saved him for change.”
“It’s okay, it’ll be alright Bonnie.” Sweet words from a sweet pony like Fluttershy meant a lot, even when it looked like Bonnie was crumbling into herself as she finally allowed herself to feel the situation fully.
What meant that much more to Bonnie was that every single experiment was in Hawaii at the house. They were all there for her and Clyde. Even Shush and her traveling brother Elastico were here. Shush seemed slightly upset, but she hugged Bonnie for all she was worth. The entire family had congregated to Hawaii hearing of one of their own was close to death and they were as upset as Bonnie still felt. The closest to experiencing death out of all of them was Stitch when he himself nearly died to a glitch problem, the Leroy’s never really counted as family to any of them.
“You have family, sure someone in that family may be a little broken, but we can all agree that we’ll be here when he gets better. Even if he doesn’t...” Lilo smiled at Bonnie and the feelings of community and family couldn’t have been any stronger between all of the present experiments. “Family, nobody get’s left behind…”
“Or forgotten….” Everyone intoned solemnly in their own way, six hundred plus voices all at once even the ones who could only make sounds to be heard did their best.
-
Hawaii was quite a peaceful place, Foxglove had even met Lahwhinie in the limited time she was there and let her hitch a ride back to New York with Betty against her better judgment. Like Fluttershy she wanted what was an enemy to become her friend, the poor mouse looked like she needed one. She had performed her job and had stuck with them through thick and thin, she was worried that she was needed back in New York and no one could fault her for leaving two days after they came arrive in Hawaii.
Virgil had found camaraderie with Samus and they talked about a lot of things together, it seemed as if he was going to do some traveling with her in the future after he was done seeing Fluttershy returned home safely personally. He wasn’t quite ready to return the Cosmic Crown to Soft Echo quite yet, not until he could be assured it was safe to do so.
Bonnie would have a lot of brothers and sisters trying to keep her occupied all day every day and they were obviously worried about her when she didn’t lift a finger to steal a single thing the entire time. Unleashing the full amount of her emotional turmoil was what finally broke her genetic programming, she was her own person and she chose to be what she wanted to be. Oh she wasn’t about to let herself get rusty, even if she now had complete control over her reflex ability. Only her ability wasn’t reflexive anymore. She can actively use it like she did back on Planet Z when she was completely enraged.
Even Donnabelle was beginning to resemble a real puppy when it came to Soft Echo, she wouldn’t let anyone else treat her like a dog though and she wouldn’t fetch the stick for anyone else.
Fluttershy relaxed and hoped that Clyde would get better even if they had never met personally. He sounded like a heroic little brother. All she had to do now was waiting for Wander to arrive. She had come a long way from home and now she was going to go back to whence she came, she had made many friends along her travels and faced just as many dangers as well. It was so strange that she’d survived so much.
As she watched the Thursday sunset, Fluttershy looked to her left to see Bonnie and the rest of her family coming down to join her in watching as the sun disappeared over the horizon. Even some fish named Pudge joined them and was asking about a peanut butter sandwich, which Fluttershy relayed to Lilo who pulled out a sandwich and tossed it into the water, where it surprisingly didn’t get soggy at all and held together as if it hadn’t gotten wet at all.
“Huh, weird magical fish.” Donna mentioned idly as she brushed out Soft Echo’s mane causing the little filly to purr at the ministrations. “So how long do you think we’ll be stuck here?”
-
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough Annabelle?” Sasha was about ready to cut the angel off. Sure she couldn’t possibly die from alcohol poisoning or at least she hoped an angel couldn’t die that way, but Annabelle was becoming incapable of doing her job. She was a wreck without her significant other.
Annabelle didn’t say anything and just tapped the counter; Sasha acquiesced and gave her another bottle anyway.
“Hey is this seat taken?” Someone asked and all Annabelle did in response was grunt as that dog took a seat next to her. “Say, did it hurt?”
“Did what hurt?” Annabelle asked blandly as it seemed like this dog wasn’t going to leave her be, didn’t this dog know she was disinterested in hearing a lame pickup line.
“You know when you literally fell from heaven, because it’s definitely missing an angel by now. You’re quite a beautiful one too!” The dog that sat next to Annabelle was getting stared at by Sasha as she moved her paw out to gently stroke one of Annabelle’s wings sending pleasure coursing down the pink whippet’s spine.
Annabelle turned to the dog slightly angry and saw a dirt covered white whippet, a completely mortal one with no demonic or angelic energies and she was beautiful.
“What’s your name?” Annabelle suddenly asked just staring blankly at the dog.
“Whatever you want it to be, but you can call me Bella.” The White dog smiled slightly. “So where did you get the wings from? They remind me of my little puppy that I couldn’t take care of properly, I hope she didn’t cause those Pound Puppy guys too much trouble. My rambunctious little scamp needed a loving family after all and I’m a hopeless tramp, maybe you wouldn’t mind indulging my company lady?”
-
Ranma, Foxglove and Kurama all were talking about the options of how fixing Ranma’s curse would go and the Rescue Rangers did in fact need Foxglove’s help. In the end the results were a little weirder than expected.
Why else would Ranma end up with a female earth pony version of himself? Sure he was cured, but having a pony that was his age for a sister was ridiculous. Somehow Fluttershy left behind some infectious ambient magic; it helped cure him of his curse. His new sister was just as confused about her existence as he was, her name was Ranko and she had a orchid growing off a piece of bamboo sticking up out of a pool of water for a cutie mark.
Kurama just found it all too funny and chuckled at the situation.
-
Another week on Earth passed by and Fluttershy was with Bonnie and Jumba had been working feverishly on restoring Clyde. Then he asked Bonnie to come into his room for Clyde’s reactivation, he had no idea what would happen when her brother was reactivated. Who knows what Clyde was missing? One thing was for sure; his genetic programming was irreparably damaged and was the one thing that couldn’t be fixed.
“Now to be reactivating Clyde, I completely restored his body. Whatever is lost is lost for good. Activating One Five Zero.” It seemed as if even Jumba was pensive about reactivating Clyde after restoring his body, flesh he could work with and he even gave Clyde back his lost arm. He couldn’t have done it previously, but now he had enough know how and mail order junk from space to build something that can regenerate his injured son back to a state before he had lost an arm. Quite frankly it was more challenging for Jumba to make stuff from random stuff he scrapped, but it was quite rewarding since it actually worked.
“Activating One Five Zero, primary function… error, primary function is inoperable. Secondary function, resilience is still operational. Vital functions performing nominally within parameters.” The word ‘error’ was never a good thing to hear a computer say, they waited as the tube lifted upward to reveal a much healthier looking Clyde. He had both his arms and his fur was slightly discolored in the places that had been replaced in the regeneration, he blinked his eyes and looked about idly.
“Where, what, my arm, what’s going on? It’s not metal anymore, what happened?” Clyde looked a little bewildered and Bonnie stepped forward with a hopeful look in her eyes.
“Clyde what’s the last thing you remember?” This was always the first question to ask someone who lost their memory and Bonnie knew it was horrible a cliché.
“Bonnie? Ohana, Family… my head is rather fuzzy, was the last thing we did together sharing ice cream? Something must have happened to me, I don’t know what made you sad Bonnie but I’ll try to make it all better.” Clyde drew his older sister in to a hug, his form engulfing her.
“You’re missing a lot bro, I’ll try to fill you in. Do you remember anything painful by any chance?” Like being flayed alive and still managing to somehow talk out what was once you’re mouth, it was something Bonnie didn’t want to say to him.
“I don’t remember how I lost my arm or how I even got it back, but I definitely remember you Bonnie. You were never as smart as you claimed to be, you were always smarter. You better not be getting any more bright idea’s now, you’re always getting us into trouble Bonnie.” Clyde snuggled his older sister, he was himself only with a lot of missing memories. He could only recall happier memories, all the time he spent with family and the very core of his heart in protecting his older sister Bonnie with all he had. “Say, who is that? I don’t remember an experiment like her existing before.”
“She’s not an experiment, but she’s kind of special to me.” Bonnie gave a bright smile to Fluttershy. “I’m sure you’ll get to know her, because her family will be sticking around with our family with a while.”
“You really need those X, Y and Z talks again don’t you?” Of all the embarrassing things Clyde had to remember, that just had to be one of them.