Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

11

The slaves didn’t know how Fluttershy got caught or how to fix her helmet; they only knew she wanted to keep it even if it wasn’t working. They now knew it allowed her to communicate with others because the first time she spoke it sounded like an angel was trying to communicate with them without speaking real words. She had been panicked upon waking up wondering where her headset was and it was still in the same broken piece it was when it was given back to her.

The living conditions had improved a lot since Fluttershy was placed with them and the slaves couldn’t be merrier until they were all being pulled from their cells and marched away, a few of the Croakers were surprised to find Fluttershy in a cell. It was that voice that made them lose that surprise. Apparently the one called Komplex knew she was in those cells the whole time which is why the ship had become less alert over the last two days.

Fluttershy found herself along with all the slaves being pushed towards the hangar on the upper floor under gunpoint of the Croakers, they weren’t willing to open fire as long as the slaves were being cooperative and Fluttershy was at the front keeping calm. She still hadn’t seen any sign of Katt, but she believed in her and believing in a friend was one of the things she can do even in the direst of situations. Such a situation was being shipped off to parts unknown to be forced to work and toil on machinery that will hurt others against her will.

The pony and the slaves were being forced aboard a large slave and cargo transportation vessel that was like a smaller version of the overall Croaker Mother-ship. They were all held at gunpoint constantly and walking up the ramp, Fluttershy could see that it would appear that every slave onboard the mother-ship was being crammed into this cargo vessel. It didn’t particularly sound like good conditions to be packed in so tightly when there were sick and injured everywhere. It was miraculous that not too many of the slaves had died yet, the few that had were before she came aboard the ship and the changes in how well they were being treated.

Fluttershy was sad for the loss of life and glad that she didn’t have to witness such brutality to keep these people in line, the Croakers were struggling with the big baboon until she start cooing and singing. It calmed his angry heart down really fast and she gave him a small smile and nodded for him to calm down. He allowed himself to be put on the ship calmly, it scared the crap out of the Croakers when it suddenly became really calm and they were already scared of it when it was raging against the chains that looked to be breaking apart due to stress.

As soon as they were all done climbing up the ramp, the Croaker soldiers started exiting the ship at the sound of a voice. A screen appeared and that face was on it, though something was very off about it to Fluttershy. It was that familiar digital toad face, it still had the same bar shaped mouth and everything about its cross shaped eyes were still intimidating. It yelled at the slaves and they packed tightly around her in a protective manner, she moved forward through the slaves and glared at the screen because it was being a big dumb mean thing.

The face gave a smile upon spotting her and then said something that sounded like it had a friendly undertone, which had Fluttershy wondering what was going on. The ramp at the back of the ship with the armed Croakers keeping their guns trained on them closed up and the entire ship felt like it was moving as it lifted off and exited the open mouth of the Croaker Mother-ship. This was seen on a secondary screen above all those onboard the ship and as soon as the mother-ship was a distant memory, the face of Komplex started giggling in a very familiar tone that turned into outright sadistic feminine laughter.

“Katt, is that you?” Fluttershy perked her ears up and stared at the screen in wonderment whereas the slaves were confused and frightened. She finally noticed that the face didn’t have red X shaped eyes anymore as it slowly morphed in front of them all, instead they were a gentle purple in color now and looked like minus signs. The inside of the mouth was also purple; in fact Fluttershy fluttered her wings slightly in excitement though it still hurt to move her right wing.

The toad shaped face on the screen pulled back and revealed Katt Monroe with a toothy smile. Her claws toyed with her data pad for a moment before she gave a wave to all the slaves and said something to Fluttershy. Deciding to let Katt to know there was a problem Fluttershy took off her headset and showed Katt the damage portion, the bipedal cat that was taller than every other being in this room frowned at the damaged headset and sighed. Fluttershy placed the damaged headset back on her head.

Katt started saying a lot of stuff and motioned to the surrounding crates, the people cheered in excitement as those were supplies for them from what could be seen as a few of them set about opening up the crates. Then Katt motioned to Fluttershy standing among the crowd and said something she couldn’t understand, one of the people tapped her shoulders and pointed forward and gently tugged her into motion.

Fluttershy was lead up to the bridge of the ship by two people, specifically the friendly green male rabbit and the squirrel with the broken tail that looked to be healing up a bit though her tail was still untreated. Walking through the door, they saw the captains chair pivot and there sitting in a rather lazy manner with an evil grin on her face was Katt who waved at Fluttershy.

Fluttershy ran forward and got Katt into a big snuggling hug, she needed the comfort of a friend at the moment. Katt spoke softly speaking kind words of which she couldn’t understand into her ears, but their meaning was not lost on the pony as her cuddling was returned with fervor. After she was done getting a bit of love from the large kitty, she felt the headset being pulled from her head and Katt looked it over. After a moment Katt pointed at the headset and then at herself.

Fluttershy shrugged at Katt and just nodded in acceptance; if Katt wanted to take a look the translating device then she was okay with it. The green rabbit from earlier spoke up and motioned to the device in a questioning tone. Katt spoke to him while pointing to the headset; possibly in explanation as to what it did and then motioned to Fluttershy given that she was the one currently incapable of verbal communication. After a moment Katt said something and then sung a single somewhat purring high note, Fluttershy blushed as she didn’t think she sounded like an angel judging by what Katt was implying.

The green rabbit rubbed the back of his head with a hand and pointed to the device while stating something with a bit of sadness. The squirrel said something that sounded positive and rather hopeful as he finished his statement, after a moment the rabbit smile. Katt said something that took away their positive feelings, but then she brightened them up by saying something while rubbing Fluttershy behind one of her ears causing her to lean into it and almost fall asleep.

It was quite noticeable that Katt was a lot larger than the people who lived in this system. If the green male rabbit was to be presumed an adult by the sound of his voice, his height from the top of his head not counting his ears was up to her belly. The squirrel was shorter and definitely female. They were more in range with pony sized beings then anything really, if these were the average heights of the people here. Even Pep and Slip were slightly taller than these people and Fox, Falco and Katt were definitely noticeably taller as memory serves.

Shaking her head from the bliss of having her ears rubbed Fluttershy was brought back to the present when Katt started to bring up several screens loaded with all kinds of data from the consoles. They were showing the systems they were in, alien letters showed mapped everything out in space and the surroundings planets and suns. After a moment, Katt entered some data and the Lylat System popped up next to the other systems and she looked to be telling the others where she and Fluttershy had come from previously. Fluttershy was happy her friend had a solid way home, now if only she could find one for herself.

Katt lifted a finger and pointed out their position, then pointed out a planet in and the screen brought up data of a planet surrounded by a bunch of floating objects. She was talking about the planet being shown and turned to the two others in the room.

The green rabbit shook his head no and said something, while pointed out the floating objects and then threw his hands up the air and shook his head sadly. The squirrel pointed out a different planet, but it had too many Croakers nearby it to really be safe so Katt had shot her down pointing out something in a serious tone.

The three looked to be wracking their brains over something and it hit Fluttershy that they were trying to figure out where to go, apparently the two planets the rabbit and squirrel talked about where not safe to go to for good reasons.

“Um… excuse me…” All the faces turned to her; she walked up to the screen and pointed to the other people onboard in the cargo hold. It took a bit of doing but she managed to get them to figure out that she wanted to ask the people where they thought they should go. The Croakers were patrolling the borders between this system and the one Katt was born in so they obviously couldn’t go back that way yet without being caught in their given Croaker ship.

Katt nodded, she started talking into a speaker and her voice could be heard coming from everywhere on the ship. Those who were busy opening the crates, along with those who were getting out food, water and medical supplies to the ones in need stopped what they were doing and they started talking amongst themselves. The ones that hadn’t stopped were busy trying to free the heavily chained up baboon creature, though that didn’t stop them or the creature from talking too.

It seemed like everyone was talking and nobody had any answers. Fluttershy was hoping one of them might come forward with a place where they could all be safely dropped off to go where they wanted to be. Of the people talking, one in particular seemed to be organizing them back into action and she had blonde hair and a tail with light purple fur that fanned out on her cheeks. She was quite a pretty bipedal cat and that wasn’t to say Katt wasn’t cute or nice looking in her own way. After a while that cat left the screen in the cargo area having managed to get them all back to working on getting everyone settled and she eventually ended up on the bridge with the three of them.

This cat started saying something in a calm manner to Katt who turned back to the map of the system and entered something into the computer. On the screen a planet appeared and some general data along with other long haired cats like the blonde one, their entire race seemed to be mostly comprised of females which kind of reminded Fluttershy of how the pony race has a sixty forty or at least a sixty five thirty five female to male ratio. To Fluttershy they looked really colorful like ponies too; maybe they had a connection with their own elements of harmony! She knew she could definitely feel something around the cat.

Turning to the cat, Katt said something that sounded questioning and the cat responded with a slightly desperate tone and pointed out that planet. Katt asked something in a flat tone and the other female cat nodded. Katt went back onto the speaker and announced something, all the people were talking again and together they all raised their hands apparently in agreement of some kind.

Katt turned back to the blonde cat and said something as she created a route on the largest screen heading for that planet; they had their next course of action and destination planned out. Fluttershy wondered how long it would take them to get there, until then she would see to the injured. Speaking of injured, if the poor squirrel was anything like the chipmunks and squirrels back home then she knew she could aid in fixing her tail so it was back in working order. Fluttershy having chiropractic knowledge that she had exercised blatantly with bears and other general large animals plus knowing how to be gentle with small animals would help immensely.

The vast galactic amount of kindness in Fluttershy would not let those who were hurting perish under her watch unless there was nothing she could do for them. Philomena had taught Fluttershy an important lesson that sometimes there were just things outside your control. She had been lucky thus far to not pick up some kind of space bound virus or illness. She thanked the magic of all ponies, the still very distant connection to her friends back home and all the goodness in the universe itself for looking out for her so far. She knew eventually that something would come along and she could only hope that she would endure when the time came to fight whatever ailment hit her with impunity.

Moving up to the squirrel Fluttershy carefully made sure she was clearly visible when she approached her, the squirrel tilted her head questioningly as Fluttershy motioned to her and her tail and then the medical supplies being unloaded on the screens. The squirrel smiled sadly and nodded, before the two of them could leave Katt called out to them making them stop.

Katt reached behind the console that the captain’s chair was sitting at, using her natural height and length of her arms she reached down to pick up something. She tossed it to Fluttershy who fumbled on her hooves to catch it and was knocked onto her still slightly bruised back and she looked at what was thrown to her. Seeing her saddlebags made her hug them to her form tightly and she started crying.

After Fluttershy had finally calmed down and wiped her eyes with her left wing she went about putting the bags on around her barrel. She gave Katt her best room brightening smile, for some reason it caused the pretty cat to flinch from the sudden warm feelings flowing into the room from the pony.

“Come on then, we need to go help those people.” Not caring whether or not the squirrel understood her, Fluttershy took her paw in a hoof and calmly left the room with a skip in her step. Her happiness at having a piece of her home still with her, she didn’t notice they left behind a completely befuddled blonde cat staring after the pony when she left the room.

Fluttershy wondered if all medical supplies were universal or if they all had the same Red Cross symbol, it was something to think about as it just didn’t seem very likely that every civilization in the universe have the same kind of medical needs fulfilled by a box with the same kinds of stuff. It wasn’t long before she realized that most of the medicine and medical supplies the Croakers gave them were completely different from what one would consider an average medical kit.

The problems Fluttershy had were how to use the medicine or read the labels to help those who needed said medicine. She would just have to trust there was a trained doctor or nurse onboard that knew how to use it or else things would get bad. Even the medical supplies from where Katt haled from had quite a few things that were different. There was, however, bandages, wrappings and stitching equipment that seemed like a universal staple in all forms of medical kits used by sentient beings and Fluttershy knew how to use those things. It kind of made her sad there were all kinds of medical advancements that the pony race had yet to stumble upon, they were amazing to watch even if they weren’t entirely natural and she bet that somewhere out there, there were probably beings that could just heal from injuries easily enough.

Finding a table to start on Fluttershy got the squirrel to lay down on her stomach, a good massage and some relaxing soft touches to her tail were just what she needed. After Fluttershy was finished she watched as the squirrel shook her tail once or twice but cringed in pain, the pony put a hoof on her shoulder and silently chided her gently making sure to point out moving her tail around right now was a bad idea for her health. The squirrel got the message and hugged Fluttershy muttering something in appreciation.

After the squirrel got off the table she patted to the table and pointed towards Fluttershy and then her wing which had been blasted clean through by an energy weapon. The squirrel carefully unwrapped the right wing and saw the kind of damage that was done to Fluttershy, it was healing pretty well given it scabbed over and the scab was covering a few of her feathers that needed to be cleaned out.

The squirrel started going over Fluttershy’s wing gently while giving slight tugs at what looked to be loose feathers. She made a happy sounding comment when she carefully rubbed her face against the wing she was working on, she didn't want to cause the pony any pain. A few of the other liberated people came over and started to help the unattended wing of the pegasus and a few were petting her behind the ears.

Yawning Fluttershy started to get really comfortable and soon fell into a restful sleep as her wing and bruises were feeling better already. The squirrel was gently prying off the scab and saw healthy flesh underneath that looked to be in the process of growing back some of the lost feathers and fur from being shot.

When kindness is given in full and is thus equally around turned. It will heal all the wounds in time, even the ones that were burned.

Author's Note:

Fluttershy won't be the one getting gored very much, but she will be going through a lot of pain and suffering before she can return home.

Let's see... what happens when you unleash Fluttebat on a different world entirely? Especially one where a cure for the transformation is less likely to happen. Well get ready to say goodbye to Katt...