Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

40

Clutching on to Roller as well as she could as they got further away from their chasers, Fluttershy tried to think back to when everything started. It likely had begun when she landed on a cloud of butterflies all flapping their wings at the same time and weren’t exactly migrating in a normal manner at all. In fact a clump of random butterflies gathered together tightly enough to slow down and temporarily lift a filly that weighed at least eighty pounds or more while falling at terminal velocity at the time was more than a bit odd. It led Fluttershy to believe that particular situation alone was quite contrived and incredibly suspicious now that she looked back on it, she had after all researched the migration pattern of those butterflies and being specifically saved by them was like a little red flag going up in her mind now. She knew what ponies had to say about butterflies, but she didn’t think too much of it even after she became friends with Discord. The current situation she was in now actually made a great deal of sense if you believed in the superstition about a butterfly flapping their wings.

The pony now had the odd belief that her cutie mark was no mere coincidence in the events leading up to what happened, it could have been a cutie mark of a little bunny or a cute squirrel and heck Fluttershy would have just been happy if it was just a cutie mark of some random paw print. But no, it was the small innocent insects that can theoretically did big things with minimal effort by having a much larger impact than they likely would ever be capable of perceiving just for even the slightest of their movements.

Her cutie mark just had to be butterflies didn’t it! Fluttershy wasn’t bitter at her cutie mark, just the idea that it could represent such destructive forces. She silently remembered what happened at the gala, the time when Discord brought out her meaner side and then it happened again with Iron Will’s assertiveness training, she couldn’t truly say it wasn’t far from the truth that she was a mare of vast destructive ability.

-

They had made good time with Discord’s directions, they were now on an elevator heading up to the right floor and they had lost the deadly duo. The Big Mouth was too damaged to burst through the floors or climb up the shaft, Discord was directing them so they could avoid its spawn which were deadlier at the moment. The head of the humanoid machines was routed for a bit and again Discord was making sure Fluttershy and Roller was not in the path of the head honcho or his many minions searching for a pony skin rug.

All Fluttershy had to do was rest while letting Roller worry about getting them back to the ship safely so she could carve out a bit of tomato to eat. Hopefully the tomato would replenish her blood as well because her head was getting dizzy. The elevators weren’t exactly functioning at full capacity because of the recent damage to the power source, but it still got them to the floor where Head Hunter sat and waited. The surroundings soon became familiar and before she knew it she was once again in the small room with the Head Hunter stuck inside, just how they left it.

Slowly rolling up the side of the ship, they entered through the top and lowered down into the safety of the vessel. Fluttershy slowly tried to limp away from Roller only for him to shoulder her and help her move to storage; she pulled off the laser rifle and placed it on the floor before pulling out a perfectly preserved tomato from the cold storage unit.

Taking out her glass knife, Fluttershy cut a small chunk of it out and immediately thought better about eating it at the moment, she tossed it on the floor and looked to Roller who gladly ate it and revved in appreciation. After that Fluttershy made sure her right hind leg was laid flat by laying on her right side and checked twice to make sure the bones were oriented correctly in her leg. She had to do this before she took a chunk of tomato in her mouth; she didn’t want her bones to knit back together wrong. She’s had enough horrific things happen to her already, she didn’t need to add having to break her own leg on purpose to her mental list.

Slowly the pony was feeling much better, her wounds were slowly ebbing away and she felt as if she ate a full course meal with that one little bit of tomato. After a minute she stood up and stowed away her knife and laser rifle. She was walking perfectly fine now, getting to the pilots seat of the ship she could see that it was still pointed at a wall.

“You made it back with some time to spare Fluttershy, you’re little friend is very fast and Rainbow won’t stop harping on about how cool it is that you survived all that. At least Pinkie and Rarity understand that you’re not out of the woods yet, the chaos field is going to hit in the next ten seconds so be ready for it.” Discord was keeping his eyes locked on the Head Hunter, chaos was a fickle mistress at times and this would be one of those times even he would be at a complete loss as to what it would do.

“Huh… I feel a big one coming. Uh Fluttershy, I’ve always loved you as a friend whatever happens I will still throw parties and I will try not to fall into a super depressed state because of what may or may not happen to you in the next few seconds because of this D-O-O-Z-Y I’m feeling here.” Pinkie was hovering in the air and vibrating more violently then a normal Pinkie Sense would have her feel.

Fluttershy hugged Roller and they closed their eyes at the same time; the ship was hovering slightly in the small room as soon as Fluttershy got its systems running.

A wave of colors and wild energy washed over the Head Hunter and then it disappeared from sight. Discord started to look around wildly for where it went, but it was hard to follow the chaotic energies bouncing the ship randomly all across the universe, through dimensions, time and space.

Fluttershy opened her eyes and she saw a dessert planet below the ship and a giant sand worm shot up at the screen. Her eyes clenched shut in fear and when she opened them again she saw an asteroid field.

Blinking in surprise, Fluttershy took in the fact that the ship was now hovering over a world that had what looked like red water that looked to be blood, it led up to a beach which led to a city named ‘Miseryville’. That was what was written on the big sign that nobody would likely ever read or come by unless they were space travelers. This place had a spooky feel to it and in the distance their looked to be a factory made to look like a giant mouth with three eyes, this caused her to shudder at the memories of what she just went through.

Another blink and Fluttershy was hovering in front of her friends and… Fluttershy tried so hard not to blink and even her friends were dumbfounded. She was back on Equus, she was finally home! Only when she blinked, she wasn’t any more.

Discord was so dumbfounded by seeing the ship suddenly appearing in front of him that he didn’t react in time to stop the chaotic energies from visibly distorting and warping it away. He could have stopped it with a snap of claw had he reacted faster, a frown crossed his face. He looked to the other ponies who were just as clearly shocked as he was that it made an appearance within ten feet of them and they too were frowning. That was the first time in months that Fluttershy had been home. It might have been for a few seconds, but it at least gave them some form of hope that she could find her way back without chaotic fields turning the Head Hunter into a pinball jumping across the entire universe at impossible distances at a time.

The Head Hunter appeared in several more places. Some of these places were weird, some were dangerous and all of it was highly confusing.

One was a vast ocean with a wooden galleon on it with a raccoon sitting at the helm steering it to battle while another ship had a parrot and a mouse dueling each other with swords on the rigging

A humongous cave with a battle going on between two factions of humans ones with white hair riding what looked to be interesting fish shaped technology, the other seemed to be different on makeshift propeller driven devices being launched from four wheeled vehicles.

There was a big glowing green emerald sitting on an altar with seven smaller alters holding several similar shaped yet differently colored floating gems in some ruins. This reminded Fluttershy of the elements of harmony somewhat.

The next location the Head Hunter had appeared upside down so Fluttershy didn’t have any time to see anything as she fell to the ceiling with a grunt. She fell to the floor again when she ended right side up at the next location; she sat up and got a glimpse of a bunch of four legged canines with gills and no eyes that all turned and lunged for the ship before it disappeared again.

After glimpsing twenty or more worlds, the chaotic energy coursing around the ship came to halt and there was nothing but an empty void around the Head hunter.

“Um… has it stopped?” After a moment Fluttershy’s right eye started twitching. She had made it back to Equus she could feel the welcoming energy of the elements of harmony trying to grab onto her before she was ripped away from it again. She didn’t cry, she didn’t whimper, she just sat there with a dull and dead look in her eyes. She moved her hooves over the controls and set the autopilot for the nearest habitable planet with lots of vegetation. It would orbit whatever planet it came across automatically so that was one less thing to worry about.

Roller revved softly asking if she was okay, he was still confused about all the places they just went to so fast. One of them was Fluttershy’s home obviously because he saw the pink one, the blue one with wings like her and the white one with a horn. He felt a hoof rub slowly over his carapace as Fluttershy got up from her seat.

“I’m going to go lie down now Roller. Please, don’t make too much noise.” Fluttershy strode away from the pilots seat leaving the sentient wheel behind. She had seen so many strange and chaotic things, was that what being Discord was like all the time? Her heart ached and her head hurt, she didn’t even want to know what became of that vessel due to all that chaotic energy. The laser rifle she now owned was just another souvenir added to her collection.

That night in her dreams all her friends and Luna gathered around her to give her a gentle loving hug, she returned it as well as she could and even Celestia spoke gentle nothings into her ears as she rested against all their bodies cuddling up to her dream self. They even got to meet and talk to Roller as he to was tired from all the fighting. Mr. Wheel, like the unusual wheel shaped puppy he was, had fallen asleep next to her and had quickly accepted Fluttershy’s dream world easily enough and went rolling along the wide opens plains free to go as fast as he wanted without tiring.

Three days later… where Discord was still trying to figure out how a soulless robot managed to stuff all those spiritual turtles into such a confined space to power the generator that confined them in a way that tormented them endlessly for a rather economical and self renewing free energy source. The turtle spirits were set free and they fled out into the universe before the chaotic field consumed the vessel to the point even he didn’t know where it ended up or what would become of it. He however did manage to find Fluttershy again to keep an eye on her, quite literally as he now wearing a fetching eye-patch while his other eye was outside of his skull on constant watch and never blinking.

Fluttershy had learned a lot about Roller Wheel, mostly about why Mr. Wheel had gone through a minor if noticeable change.

Wheelies in general were a highly adaptive species. Ask questions like, how did they deal with large predators hunting them? The end result is those big black toothy monstrous wheelies who survived the dangerous process of bringing down said predators to adapt a larger size and become more dangerous. Get injured a lot? Grow a tough red carapace over the top half of your body. Need to warn off smaller predators, get a boost or just plain fart? Tubes that fired pressurized magical energy out their backsides. Like being up at night more than the day? Eventually grow a horn that goes through the biological process of generating phosphorous as you moved.

The downside to all these adaptations was that the wheelie in question moved much slower than they normally would to incorporate such abilities, Mr. Wheel was afraid he had gotten slower because of his now markedly tougher tire and wanted to test it out in a much more open space. The irony was not lost on Fluttershy, as that was all she saw for the past few days.

Get attacked by a bunch of killer robots? Eat them and eventually adapt a harder to pop tire along with the possible ability to eat much crunchier substances apparently. That’s at least Fluttershy’s diagnosis on his slightly changed wheel.

Roller’s size hadn’t changed, but his tire looked more durable than it used to be. The tire should have looked thicker but it wasn’t, the noticeable change was that it was grayer in appearance. Wheelies really were miraculous creatures; learning directly from one was quite the lesson in how their biology actually made complete sense. They started out looking like snails whose foot quickly wraps their central mass, then went from there adapting as they rolled along.

Fluttershy was still trying to get over the mental scar of being put on Equus then suddenly being completely stripped away again. Her heart was filled with hopes and dreams only to be horribly dashed on the rocks of reality that the little fishing boat hits in a reef with no lighthouse. Well that was poetic and she felt slightly dead inside, she now realizes Photo Finish was right about her and having Gothic undertones in her personality.

A beeping noise was heard; Fluttershy looked up at the screen and away from Roller who had been idle at her side chatting with her. Head Hunter had found a planet and it was definitely green, quite covered in vegetation really and there was a lot of sentient life on it or the planet was the sentient life, hard to tell from the readings she was seeing on the screen as she twisted and shifted her hooves.

It wasn’t hard to see that Chozo technology was built with the words ‘user friendly’ in mind for just about any kind of race that had at least one limb to touch the screens with; the only thing that wasn’t user friendly was the language being half griffon script.

Sighing Fluttershy looked to Roller and he stared back at her, well no time like the present to go and get herself killed in numerous possible ways. Like going outside her door wasn’t dangerous enough with the timber wolves, cockatrices and other nasty creatures of her home world.

The descent went perfectly fine, the landing perfectly fine, the air perfectly fine, the wildlife was perfectly cute and adorable. Fluttershy still wondering when the other shoe would drop as she told Roller not to get lost and let him run loose so he could get some exercise, she had set the ship down next to a wide slow flowing river outside a forest. She checked the water and it was perfectly clean, something was definitely up with this planet and Fluttershy was afraid to ask.

“This place is really beautiful as is this planet.” After a moment of looking around and seeing no sign of danger or anyone, Fluttershy sighed and decided to say it and hope she didn’t get a response. “I really am afraid to ask this out loud, but what exactly is wrong with this place?”

“Not much, I try to keep things nice around here for everyone who visits me.” A little red flower that looked like a flytrap popped up from the ground, Fluttershy squeaked and fell over onto her side in fright. After all the killer robots you’d think she would have lost the ability to be adorable, Private Pansy her ancestor certainly didn’t and she fought in wars. “Hello there, I’m really sorry about startling you. Been a long time since I’ve been capable of speech but your presence has put a bit of oomph back into my tired body. Feels nice to stretch out the leaves again, giving birth to an entire race will take a lot out of you, you know what I mean? Probably not, since you’re not a planet and you didn’t birth and raise an entire sentient species on your body... do you by any chance have the ability to talk to microorganisms?”

“W-who are you?” After trying to hide behind her mane Fluttershy realized she didn’t have that luxury anymore and she became sad until the flower grew up to her face and lifted it with a soft leaf to her chin.

“You poor thing, what’s wrong? I’m getting some seriously downer vibes from you, here on me you need a good disposition and I might be able to help you out better. I love it when people have positive energy and these negative feelings are really harsh to my mellow as my babies like to say.” After a moment where the plant frowns, it then curved its lips up into a smile. “I know what will cheer you up! Oh wait… we forgot to introduce ourselves to each other, haven’t exactly been the same or this strong since I gave birth. Hi, my name is Janet and I’m a planet.”

Lifting a leaf in friendship toward Fluttershy, she carefully let the leaf wrap around the end of her hoof and they shook once before separating.

“Hello Janet, I’m Fluttershy and I’m a pegasus pony.” It felt a little odd for her to be talking to something that she would have once looked at as food; in fact it was kind of freaking her out a bit.

“Hey Fluttershy, come on and tell little old me what’s wrong. It’ll make you feel better and I can direct you to the sentient species I gave birth to. They’re really nice and they are really good at doing the whole spa treatment thing visitors tend to like! They’ll help anyone relax really, friendly bunch my babies are.” After looking over her new friend Janet decided to pull back on the enthusiasm at meeting a kindred spirit much like her children. “Sorry… you’ve must have been through a lot and here I am yapping away and you’ve must have been flying for so many galactic miles.”

“Um… there are other spaceships that come through here?” The Head Hunter didn’t detect anything coming in except life and lots of plants, so Fluttershy was understandably confused.

“Yeah, but not the kind of spaceships your kind builds… kind of odd looking for a species with four legs to build a ship that looks like that.” Noticing the grimace on the pony’s face, Janet figured something was wrong with what she had just said. “So I take it that ship is not yours huh?”

“It’s a long story.” It was the beginning of a new friendship between pony and a fully sentient planet, Fluttershy let off her worries, her fears, her pains she felt, the things she has done and all the mental scars she had accrued getting to this point.

“Wow… you don’t usually see that much crazy stuff unless you’re a star nomad and yeah, a planet blowing up is a pretty scary thing. Then again star nomads don’t tend to get injured as badly as you seem to do. You almost seem like one otherwise, going where the wind blows and all that. I hope you eventually find your way home, until then I hope you can enjoy my… hospit… tality?” There was something in the expression on the pony’s face that Janet worried; it was a sudden smile as if she had heard the best news ever. “Was it something I said?”

“You’ve actually seen a star nomad!” This was something that Fluttershy had to explore; of course she wouldn’t get ahead of herself. Oh no… she was definitely shy and bitten more than twice.

“Of course I have, let me tell you a story about a little fuzzy orange happy go lucky fellow and the horrors I unleashed on him because I was once a lonely deserted rock. The guy was ridiculously kind and so was his friend to have forgiven me for almost killing the both of them. Things have gotten a lot better since they left.” Then that led into Janet telling Fluttershy about her two visitors, one of which she injured numerous times and yet that being wouldn’t die despite being pushed into the molten core of her body. So Mr. Meta Knight was right in saying that those who travel with a star nomad as their close companion are immortal.

Author's Note:

I wasn't as distracted as I usually was and started writing the next chapter from the point of posting the last one, this is how fast I can put out a new chapter if I'm pushing it. It's been about five hours.

Sylvia never died despite everything that happens to her, makes you wonder why she even bothers running from the watchdogs if being at the center of a planet couldn't do her in. It makes sense if she's only doing it to protect Wander because otherwise she's really tough. Injuries tend to only hinder Sylvia for a short while, just because she's immortal doesn't mean she can't still feel crippling amounts of pain. Then again if Wander was killed, it would make Sylvia mortal the moment he died which is far from likely in the natural causes department, but goodness knows Lord Hater really tries.

Everyone remembers Janet the planet? Well the race Janet gave birth to is part of the mix of crossovers and it really mixes well given the natives particular technological prowess.

Comments

[Acacia Sgt]

And it's over. It actually feels slightly satisfying reading that...

Oh oh oh oh... you did that... you did that. You had to, don't you? How dare you!

Wow, that was certainly the amount of references... only one I recognized was... Atlantis... okay, that's it, this chapter is killing me...

Okay, it's back to unknown territory for me. Yeah, never seen WoY. I might, though; this story is actually making me consider it, heh.