Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

52

Heartache, it was becoming a common thing for Fluttershy but she would eventually recover because time healed all wounds. Kindness was a hard path to follow, especially when it might have been more kind to have let someone die peacefully instead of living in agony. Fluttershy would never know, it was hard to tell if her decision was the right one or not.

Truffle had been on the cold hard floor and Fluttershy noticed his breath was getting shallow he had no idea what was happening to him, he wasn’t feeling pain and he was trying to use his right arm to clutch at his chest as his heart failed from the numbing medication. Life or death was the choice in Fluttershy’s hooves; inevitably she chose life and all the chaos that will have encompassed it. She hurt him to save him; she hurt him badly and at a cost. Was it worth it?

“You did what you thought was right Fluttershy.” The shy pony looked up at the voice only for some pink silken locks of hair to fall into place over her face; they slowly became petals that shifted out of her face. Looking down she was wearing the suit again and still seeing the alien blood on her hooves. She noticed Truffle’s body laying there lifeless as she remember him being. When she blinked her eyes she noticed Twilight standing before her instead of the lifeless form of Truffle. “None of us can fault you for choosing to save him or what you did; Pwerta was too busy to do it herself. You’re not a monster Fluttershy; so please stop having this nightmare I beg of you. What hurts you out there hurts us here as well; you can’t keep blaming yourself for making a judgment call, even a painful one like that.”

“Then why do I feel like one, you must have heard from Discord what happened. How can you not think I’m a monster Twilight? I have blood on my hooves and it’s not my own.” As a pony, many would suspect she should live in a magical fantasy land and be happy with life. She was mostly just content with her life taking care of her animals until they passed on to the great beyond as long as they died naturally. What she had done messed with her mentality and was something she wasn’t ever going to forget.

“I would have done the same thing if it was you Fluttershy! He was dying and he was a friend of yours, why wouldn’t you try to save him? When those hornet things finally came, we watched you struggle to help the natives and you shared their pain by standing proudly beside them!” Twilight screamed at Fluttershy causing her to jerk back and her hooves looked less bloody then they did before, she also cowed a bit. “Stop beating yourself up Fluttershy, Pinkie’s mane might never inflate again if you can’t remember how to smile no matter how much it hurts. It’s even hard for me to keep the feeling of the magical bond we still have together as strong as it is, but we’re still doing it and it isn’t easy without you. We’re suffering with you…”

“Hey, he lived Fluttershy, even if you hurt him badly. Oh and you kind cried yourself to sleep again while in my arms after I helped you bathe.” Mira walked up to Twilight and the two just stared at each other, after a moment Mira knelt down and pulled Fluttershy into a tight embrace. “Dream a little dream for me, will you? Make it something happy, something you’d think all your friends would enjoy you dreaming about. I’m Mira, you must be Twilight.”

“I can’t Mira; it was because I was so selfish that it happened in the first place. I wanted him to live and I hurt him; I nearly killed him trying to save him and there was all that blood.” Fluttershy curled up in Mira’s arm spilling a rivers worth of tears, it wouldn’t have been possible if this weren’t a dream as Fluttershy looked something like a miniature weeping willow now.

“Fluttershy has told me a lot about you. You’re a princess, yet you don’t care about your royal title. You instead protect the ideals of the Galactic Alliance. From the way Fluttershy tells it, you’re really brave Mira.” Twilight looked down at the little yellow willow tree that planted itself in Mira’s embrace.

“I may be brave, but I’m also scared all the time. Most of my fear is not for my life personally though. I’m scared for the lives of everyone else in my line of work; my friends, the civilians that get caught up in the crossfire and even those who would claim to be my enemies.” Mira started petting the wilting leaves and Fluttershy slowly turned back into her natural form with a full length mane. The pony was snuggling up against her in comfort. “I hurt others for a living, I have anger issues, I have possibly destroyed as many lives as I have saved and my life is like watching one train wreck after another. I work at Star Command because I choose not to be a snobbish asshole like the others in my species. I wanted to make a difference and so I did that by becoming what I wanted to be and not letting others tell me who I am or what to do. Do you think I’m evil for following my heart Fluttershy? I mean I could rise up to be the biggest figurehead of my people; instead here I am out in the universe putting myself in the line of danger for the possibility of only meeting ungrateful strangers for the rest of my life. Even then I still think what I do is all worth it in the end and that’s what truly matters to me.”

“No, you’re very nice and a wonderful person Mira. Even if you get a bit scary at times, I can hardly even begin to understand how you handle all that responsibility and danger. You remind me a lot of Rainbow Dash; she’s one of my best friends and now you are too.” Fluttershy felt Mira run a hand through her long pink hair, the caressing touch felt so real.

“Being around violence all the time never gets any easier you know, just got to laugh it off and keep pushing forward for a better future. You look really good with long hair by the way, it really suits you.” Neither of them said anything as Mira silently continued playing with Fluttershy’s dream mane and she eventually moved on to slowly stroking her back.

“You know Fluttershy is right, you do kind of strangely reflect Rainbow Dash in the loyalty department. You even seem to have a knack for it.” Twilight had sat idly by and watched the two interact; Fluttershy had always liked being cuddled even if she won’t admit it.

“What can I say, especially when I learned from watching the best in action? I trained hard to get as good as I am.” Both ponies perked up their ears and stared at Mira, she had just said something that Rainbow would have about the Wonder Bolts. As they continued to sit in silence, they hadn’t notice Twilight moving off to the side while becoming thoughtful.

“Now that I think about it, it’s not just Loyalty. Does she have a bit of honesty as well?” Twilight muttered as she stared at what was clearly a representation of two elements of harmony before her; even if she wasn’t a pony she clearly upheld the ideal of loyalty in high esteem. It was eerie that Mira had blue skin like Rainbow Dash had cyan fur and even had a similar personality too. “Katrina and her generosity that allowed us to connect to Fluttershy better. There was Fox and his team taking in Fluttershy and feeding her, the etecoons and dachoras nursing her back to health and the people of Dream Land helping her heal after she was battered and beaten. She’s been meeting a lot of beings who represent kindness, maybe that’s why she ended up on Rhizome after being introduced to a field of raw chaotic energy. She ended up in a place filled with beings that are just as kind and peaceful as she is.”

After a moment Twilight had a realization, the elements of harmony weren’t just a thing unique to Equus. Now that she was seeing it for herself, the elements of harmony were clearly a universal thing and Fluttershy was easily running into anyone who had some of those very traits. In fact, she might even be spreading those traits slowly across the universe and not just her own personal trait of kindness either.

“Friendship… I guess I’ve been a bit blind to the more subtle nature of what I really share with the girls.” It was only now that Twilight realized that all her friends each represent two elements while she only had the one, but it was important that she only held the one. What was it that bound the other five elements together? “We all represent the element of magic equally; we all represent friendship at the same time and that was why Star Swirl’s spell left my cutie mark alone. It couldn’t change it to any other pony because we all had the element of magic in each of us. That would mean Fluttershy is the element of not only kindness, but also of magic! Meta Knight must have known when he told Luna that… the darkness will never consume her and could only end her trying to do so.”

After a moment of standing around Twilight closed her eyes and she smiled, then she started to move even further away from Mira and Fluttershy. Fluttershy was currently in good hooves at the moment, Twilight trusted that Fluttershy would meet and become friends with many more beings. Everyone back on Equus would hear about it because Fluttershy loved learning about new cultures and sharing it with all of her pony friends. Fluttershy has seen so many wondrous things already, who knows what amazing thing she’d see next?

“A true, true friend helps a friend in need... and it takes a true, true friend just to see… that a light always shines from a true, true friend.” Now Twilight saw the full scope of their friendship and it was quite the sight. Even if Fluttershy were to perish out there, she would always be in the hearts of her friends as a light that couldn’t be fully extinguished. They had to continue being strong for Fluttershy and she had to reciprocate, ironically enough, in kind.

Neither Fluttershy nor Mira noticed when Twilight disappeared from the dream with a pop; Fluttershy was busy slowly accepting the loving embrace of a friend helping to ease her guilt. Twilight had something important to write down quickly lest she forget one of the biggest things she had ever learned about her connection with her friends.

“Um… Mira… can I dream that little dream now?” Fluttershy’s quiet voice cut through the silence.

“Make it an especially good one Fluttershy.” With a request as simple as that from Mira, how could Fluttershy refuse?

-

They were the dangerous criminals; they were the notorious villains that lived in Galactic Alliance space and they were all deadly and gifted with talents in wanton destruction.

Torque was a deep voiced yellowish alien with five eyeballs, four arms and had the ability to make unstable clones thanks to an implant installed by Zurg’s minions that thankfully only worked with his particular biology. He was dangerous for being one man army unto himself; his copies didn’t survive a single solid blow though. He was good at wielding four guns at once and was a well known terrorist.

Gravitina was a dangerous teal skinned woman, whose bald head was the size of a small planet and it easily angered her to have people constantly stare at it. Who wouldn’t stare at something like that? She had her own planetary ring and three moon s the size of baseballs constantly revolving around her head. Said planet sized cranium gave her the ability to control gravity to such a degree that she could seriously do a lot of damage, moving some celestial objects wasn’t hard for her and she was once hired by Zurg to destroy Star Command. Obviously she failed her task, but was still in the business of evil.

Warp Darkmatter was a the red and purple armored man that is known as the worst traitor to the Space Rangers to ever exist and was once a partner of Buzz Lightyear. He was working as a double agent for Evil Emperor Zurg back then until he was exposed as a traitor; he was in the market of trading Star Command secrets for cold hard cash. One of his arms had to be replaced with a robotic limb after trying to fake his death went horribly wrong; it comes with various nasty surprises installed in it.

The last of the villains were the Gargantian Militants, a Gargantian was a tiny four fingered purple skinned man with horns that could fit into Fluttershy’s hoof. These Gargantians in particular had a preference for autonomy and isolation. They were a small military loving sect of their race; despite them only being a few inches tall they were all extremely dangerous. They specialized in sabotaging spaceships and were a perfect depiction of gremlins in space. They could take down targets fifty times their size with ease, most likely because no one would notice them coming before they could inject you with a deadly poison. It was never a good idea to underestimate a single highly determine Gargantian, much less an entire group of them working together in unison.

These were the beings that were being sent after a soft target that had no hope of defending herself against all these guys at once on her lonesome. The one Zurg singled out to capture Fluttershy alive, Bonnie Jookiba, was in fact the wildcard in Zurg’s little game.

-

Bonnie sat there at a console looking over the data of the target, a first contact ambassador, with a sour look on her face. She was on a planet known as Trade World, a nearly lawless place where you could trade for just about anything, Space Rangers had a problem keeping a lid on the things that happened here and grand theft or destruction of personal property was a dime a dozen here.

Bonnie wasn’t truly evil, but she had to work for the emperor for her brother’s sake if she wanted to get him out alive. She was an illegal genetic experiment made by her father who was a rather infamous mischievous scientist named Jumba Jookiba. She vaguely resembled an etecoon in appearance, had primarily green fur, yellow belly and small blue stripes on her limbs. Her production number was one forty nine, she was genetically designed to steal anything and evade being arrested with the help of her younger brother. While they were good at what they were designed for, they weren’t entirely perfect at it. In particular she was thankfully designed with better brains than her brother.

Bonnie had an idea of what Zurg had in mind for her. While the others were tripping all over themselves, she’d swoop to steal that creature and turn her in to Zurg so that he could torture her endlessly for his own sick amusement.

Chances are, even if Bonnie did turn the girly looking thing in; Zurg would not bother with releasing her little brother because she heard his exact wording loud and clear. She knew that the emperor would backstab her if given the chance. That or he would just get some enjoyment out of making her fight some of the worst villains in the Galactic Alliance just for a chance to rescue Clyde.

Zurg enjoyed tormenting not only heroes, but the other villains as well. Bonnie was mostly just a petty thief who was good at what she was made to do. Stealing living things wasn’t against her genetic programming, but darn it if it wasn’t hard to do. She’d steal this first contact ambassador alright, but only so she could get on Zurg’s planet where her brother was. She didn’t care about what would happen to the ambassador when she delivered her.

At least Bonnie had a good idea of how to take care of Warp Darkmatter already, his mechanical arm was made based off the technology copied from her brother’s mechanical arm and that was already enough reason for her to be pissed at the emperor. Zurg might have had her under the carrot for a while, but he was making a huge mistake by messing with her Ohana. Besides Bonnie didn’t truly jump at carrots on a string, she was far craftier then that and the emperor severely underestimated her intelligence. He thought he could play her by her emotions; well he was going to see what an angry Bonnie Jookiba looked like if he didn’t pay up for this obviously rigged job.

Bonnie’s youngest brother would have helped if she had only asked for it, she didn’t think she needed production number six two six or any of the rest of her massive family to help her with this. She didn’t want to interrupt Stitch’s quiet life; he didn’t need to hear from an older sister who couldn’t reform in spite of their father’s genetic programming quirks for evil or that she was still as bad as the day that she first met her youngest brother. She didn’t need anybodies help as things were just better that way, except maybe for Clyde. Why did her family have to be so damn understanding and why does it still bother her to this very day that they were!

“Ugh, Meega Nala Queesta!” Bonnie muttered to herself as she started polishing her freshly stolen blaster while looking out the window of the rundown apartment complex. She knew Clyde felt the same way about the Ohana, yet they couldn’t ever be near them without hurting them.

-

Fluttershy let out a deep yawn and stretched out her four hooves, her bat wing and her pegasus wing. She unfortunately couldn’t get up because she had two arms wrapped around her barrel. Mira looked to be sleeping so peacefully she didn’t want to disturb her by moving too much.

“Mira I’m so happy to hear you’re… oh my goodness, that’s adorable!” A big red figure popped up in Fluttershy’s vision and he resembled a large oval red dragon without wings. The pony squeaked and shrunk back from that big mouthed toothy smile the pink eyed creature was sporting.

Fluttershy hadn’t understood what this obviously intelligent being was saying, but he certainly seemed excited about something and Mira continued to sleep on peacefully, completely dead to the world while using her as a plush toy and drooling a bit. At least the drool was only getting on the pillow and not her wings; this guy was obviously not very dangerous as he looks.

“Hey, there’s no need to be afraid little guy… or are you girl? It’s hard to tell, because I’ve never seen anything like quite you before. You look like a Cyclocentaurian only different.” The large creature was down on his four fingered hands and knees meeting her at eye level, it brought some form of comfort to the pony given this was a tactic she personally used with little animals.

It was at this point that Fluttershy realized that she had met a kindred spirit, given his great enthusiasm and demeanor he seemed to be a rather gentle giant like that one berserker baboon she met. She lifted her head up and pointed a hoof at the nearby translators and motioned putting them on her head with a hoof, all while making cute neighing noises that melted the heart of the Space Ranger invading Mira’s quarters.

“Huh, you want that, oh okay.” The giant picked up and plopped the translator into her hoof, where she then places it on her head and points out the other one, then to Mira, then to him. “Um, you want me to borrow Mira’s thingy?”

Fluttershy nodded and watched him as he had a slight problem with getting the translator designed for Mira on his head, after he was done.

“Well now what?” He asked wondering what the devices did, Star Command wouldn’t have let something dangerous past security much less in Mira’s quarters.

“Um… I’m… my name… flutter… uh…” Fluttershy was having a hard time introducing herself she shyly pawed at the bed with a hoof drawing little circles in the sheets.

“Huh, oh is that’s what these things do? They help translate our languages for each other.” Receiving a nod from the shy creature Booster clapped his hands together. “Hi I’m Booster Sinclair Munchapper, sorry I couldn’t hear your name, you’re really quiet. Oh I have got to get a picture of you and Mira, this is just so precious. Hold on a second, I’ll be right back!”

So that was Mira’s friend Booster, she wasn’t exaggerating when she heard he was larger than life and just as friendly.

“Now hold still and smile.” Booster came back in and Fluttershy gave him a weak smile and after a clicking noise he pulled out a picture of her and Mira cuddled together. “Oh sorry, I just get so excited, are you a new cadet?”

“No… I’m Fluttershy… I’m a pony. Mira brought me here because I’m something called a first contact ambassador.” His eyes light up and he bit his lower lip, Fluttershy heard him trying to hold back a squeal at how adorable she was as she tried to pry herself free from Mira’s iron grip around her waist. After a moment Booster sharpened his eyes and threw up a silly salute with a bright smile.

“Booster reporting for duty ma’am, I’m at your service! So do you need anything? Mira is kind of a heavy sleeper, so you’re going to be stuck like that for a while Ms. Fluttershy.” This would lead to a beautiful friendship between a jo-adian and the pony still being incarcerated by a slumbering tangean.

Author's Note:

Bonnie Jookiba (Experiment 149) from Lilo and Stitch the series- Her special abilities include wall crawling, quick thinking, high speed split second evasion and can hot wire most vehicles meant for civilian use on her own if given the time to do so. Without her brother Clyde her abilities as a thief are limited.

Current crossover-> Lilo and Stitch the series, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Starfox.

Comments

[StarzGecko]

Ohh this is good!