Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

6

Fluttershy would have never imagined being in the middle of a war. Being in the middle of it and actually being an active part of it were two completely different things. She really didn’t like the idea of killing living beings unless it was by accident, in self defense when you had no other choice or if you were a predator and needed to eat something.

She has been on the ship for an entire month, in that time she helped out the ones who were actually a very active part of the war. She made a little niche for herself onboard by cooking, cleaning and just overall making them feel at home and comfy after a very trying battle.

Thus far they had passed by a second murkier water planet in the system, one where it was too late to stop the enemy from polluting it to the state it was in now. The enemy had totaled the environment of the planet in its entirety, making Fluttershy cry at the ruination brought to a lot of innocent life that the planet once held.

Leaning back and sighing from her work in the kitchen, she thought the team was incredibly good at flying and even Rainbow would have wanted one of those fighter ships. Fluttershy stayed behind on the main transport of the four mercenaries while they were currently busy blowing up a weapons factory down on the next planet.

They had a run in with the grumpy bird’s old friend on the ruined planet and she sounded rather nice. Fluttershy even heard Rob, the mechanical voice of the ship, mentioning her modified fighter following them down to the planet they were at now after they off the tank. It was nice to know that their friend was willing to help them, but if she wanted to help so much then why didn’t she just come onto the ship and ride with them instead of following behind them?

While they were busy down on the planet, Fluttershy was doing things that needed to be done around the ship that she thought would be nice way to return their kindness for taking her onboard their home as she didn’t want to be a freeloader. She liked the sea world she landed on, but she wouldn’t want to live there for the rest of her life and it was thanks to them she might be on the path back home already.

Fluttershy cleaned, dusted, talked to Rob over the ship wide communications array and was preparing a meal for the crew once they got back from their life or death struggles. She wasn’t worried about the safety of the crew as they’ve already pushed back invaders from their main home world, punctured through an entire fleet while devastating it, stopped pollution on the planet she was on and took down one of their enemy’s bases on the previous planet. Not to mention the many skirmishes they got into on the way through all these places up to their new mission on the resource heavy planet of Macbeth.

She was better off not thinking about them being so close to death as often as they were with entire throngs of things shooting at them from all angles everywhere they went in the name of peace and money. Fluttershy was more surprised they were more worried about finding a place to safely offload her as right now it was looking to be a hard thing to do, much harder considering they are all warming up to her and they were in the middle of some dangerous territory.

The frog, whose name was Slip, was the engineer that maintained all the more technical stuff onboard and he would have made a great friend for Twilight. He enjoyed vegetation as much as any pony would, but he tended to like bugs in his food crushed or still alive. He was quite easy to be friends with and had a positive outlook on things, though he was a bit insensitive at times. She hoped he liked the salad she was making for him; especially after they had a long talk about what happened on planet Aquas and gained a good understanding of one another.

The rabbit, whose name was Pep, was the lone surviving member from the original team of mercenaries and was as much an advisor as he was an experienced pilot. Fluttershy had quite a few philosophical debates with him. He spoke fondly about his daughter since she reminded him so much of her; he usually did this when their debates stalled. Said debates about why true peace was never really achievable or even feasible and that a little chaos was always a good thing, they stopped when things became too thought provoking. Fluttershy knew he would like those vegetables that look liked carrots in his salad. Maybe with some vinaigrette she had made from the alien plants of this solar system. Applejack and Rarity could have gone on for hours with him on any subject when it came to philosophy.

The bird, whose name was Falco, had as much ego as Rainbow Dash and they would have been best friends from the moment they started boasting at each other. Sure he may seem aggressive and antagonistic, but he truly cared about all those who could get into his abrasively tough heart which went to no ends when it came to reminding Fluttershy of Gilda the griffon. She also knew that he liked her and would never openly admit to warming up to her, he was too prideful for that. Instead of saying it openly, it was seen in his actions. If she was about to do something where she could end up hurting herself he’d immediately drop whatever he was doing to scold her about it, then he would help her with the task in question so she’d remember how to do the chore the next time they needed her to do so. She hoped he liked the soup she made just for him, it tasted a bit salty and bland but the aftertaste was worth it the initial flavor which wasn’t bad at all and he was definitely going to need some coffee when he got back, as the stuff really calmed him down.

The name of the fox was in fact Fox; he had a personality that Fluttershy considered very brave. He was also an awkward goofball in most social situations considering he was as bad as she was; though you’d never know it by how graceful he flew and how focused he was on bringing peace to his solar system. The red winged fox symbol was practically his cutie mark; it defined him and his family that he protected by attracting more attention to himself then his best friends could take off of him. From what she could tell he always drew more fire then his friends ever could by an exponential amount, just watching the recording of him puncturing a hole in an entire fleet of those large ships with his fighter alone was breathtaking. It was only a few minutes into the fight when she heard the recorded message of the enemy commander telling them all to focus their fire on Fox alone.

Fluttershy needn’t lecture Fox on all the lives he was taking or how his anger could get to him and lead him astray; he knew all too well what he was doing in this war by fighting as hard as he could to stop it. She hoped she got that dessert recipe right, Fox needed something sweet in his bitter life after having lost his father to war and treachery. He definitely needed more friends and time to relax; he was surprisingly young to be putting so much stress on himself, not to mention the responsibility he was shouldering was enormous. It wasn’t very healthy for him to hold all his sadness in all the time.

The last crew member didn’t need any food; his name was Rob robot model sixty four. Fluttershy didn’t entirely understand what he was; just that he was some kind of magical construct as far as she was concerned. At first he seemed like this entirely emotionless thing that simply stated stuff, but after having spent some time around him he started to become strange and more proactive. He asked if there was anything she needed or if there was anything he could do for her whenever he saw her moving about the ship. He was connected to the entire ship that was the home to Fox and his friends, so he had the ability to show her whatever information she wanted to know had she bothered to ask for it. He’d show her without hesitation and seemed to enjoy just being in her presence, got less mechanical sounding the more time he spent in her company.

“Rob, do they need us to pick them up yet? I’m almost finished with the meal, oh and is Falco’s friend coming too? I hope I made enough for all of them.” Fluttershy hummed softly as she moved about, the four guys couldn’t cook to save their lives and yet they had a kitchen on this ship that was completely underused and oddly stocked. Eating nothing but nutrient bars had to get real old, they tasted like various types of fruit and as Applejack would tell her, even too much of a good thing can be bad. That is why every now and then Applejack would sneak a pear into her diet sometimes just for a change up of flavor.

“I will make an inquiry if she is coming onboard Miss Fluttershy. The mission is now complete we are heading down to the planet for pick up. The enemy forces have lost their ability to generate weapons in a large capacity, the estimated lives saved by this operation is in the millions and the crew are all safe and accounted for with minimal need of repair.” Rob would always give Fluttershy something positive to think about, he always seemed to be trying to please her and make her happy with infallible calculations and logic. After a moment of silence he spoke up again. “Yes, pilot Katt Monroe is coming to dinner at the request of Fox on the terms of a business proposition.”

“I’ll set another spot at the table then, thank you Rob.” Fluttershy hadn’t met Falco’s friend yet, but she sounded nice after having watched her help them out on the planet called Zoness.

“That would be prudent Miss Fluttershy, you are always welcome. Ever since you came aboard crew and ship efficiency has gone up twenty percent.” The more warm sounding mechanical voice answered back, Fluttershy blushed a little at receiving so much praise when she really wasn’t doing all too much except the little things.

It wasn’t ten minutes late that Fluttershy was witness to a pink furred white haired bipedal cat entering the area where she had set up a meal for the weary pilots. They both stared at each other as soon as they made eye contact, Fox and the others looked at the offerings on the table curiously while Fluttershy and the cat looked each other over.

“Hey when did you get a new member, especially one that can cook? Meow that smells good, some food would hit the spot right about now and I could care less if the nudist made it.” The cat person licked her lips as she sniffed the air; she was immediately at the table first before anyone else. Fluttershy wondered why she had to point out that she was nude so bluntly, she had never bothered to ask for something to make clothes with and was okay with just being au natural. Fox and friends were used to how her culture worked by this point and she understood their need to wear clothing; this cat didn’t have the luxury of knowing about her home yet.

“Actually she’s what my business proposition is about Katt… but before that we better eat, wouldn’t want her efforts to make a meal for us to go to waste after all we just went through.” Fox rubbed the back of his head as he looked at the soup after being doled out by Fluttershy, after getting a taste he became hooked on it and so did his friends when they got theirs. “Fluttershy this is wonderful, are you sure you’re not from any of the planets in this system? Let me introduce you to Katt Monroe…. who seems to be enjoying your cooking a little too much.”

“Well excuse me if I hadn’t had a decent meal since I was shot down and had to steal that experimental Venom made Invader mark three fighter which I modified a bit to fit my particular needs. It was touch and go for a while and I really needed a distraction to get off Zoness, your arrival was quite fortunate for me to that end.” Katt let out a belch and continued to stuff her mouth with salad and soup. “This is so good after having to eat nothing but crap for half a year. You guys are so lucky that I stole that fighter, it really helped out with the war effort given they had to stick with making cheap knock offs. Oh the things my Catspaw can do, it’s top of the line like your fighters happen to be with all kinds of bells and whistles. Managed to snag the blueprints and destroyed most of the data on it so they couldn’t exactly recreate it. If you have a proposition for me I’ll gladly hear you out and lend my skills to the cause, but only if I can get more of that soup!”

“Well I’m glad you’re enjoying the food.” If making friends in space was going to be this easy then Fluttershy would be home in no time, she smiled vibrantly. Katt reminded her of Pinkie Pie, vibrant and upbeat especially for being stuck on a planet worse off than Aquas was for half a year given it was turned into, as insensitively as Slip called it, a complete dump.

The meal was met with approval all around about her cooking, she did enjoy caring for others and in turn they were caring for her as well. The shy pony got to know a bit about Katt Monroe, she was a rebellious pilot that was being a constant thorn in the Venom Army’s side and was once part of a gang that Falco took part in. The Venom Army was what fox and his friends were fighting against and were the ones causing all these horrors and pain throughout the solar system. As they were finishing up the food Fluttershy noticed something was off with Fox and he had a frown on his face.

“Okay now it’s time to talk about that business proposition I have for you Katt, you most likely know where we’re heading to next right?” Fox started slowly, Fluttershy noted he was trying not to look at her.

“Yeah, but I’m not that good a pilot. I’m not nearly suicidal enough like you guys to go for that kind of run.” Katt seemed to go from peppy to instant worry within seconds, what she said kind of scared Fluttershy a little. She thought Katt was a good pilot considering how well she helped out Fox and his friend twice already.

“I’m not asking you to help us with putting a large hole in area six, I’m asking you to transport something for us and to make sure it gets to some form of safety.” Only now did Fox look in Fluttershy’s direction, the pony looked away shyly knowing what he was getting at.

If it was dangerous enough that Fox can’t risk her being around, then it was for the best that she wasn’t around for them to worry about. Fluttershy understood this well enough; it was like when Twilight first became a princess. They were so focused on Twilight’s status and keeping her safe that they stopped being the good friends they were entirely because of it, in this case she knew what it felt like now. Except it wasn’t exactly the same thing as she wasn’t as important as to be needed for an entire planets continued survival by controlling both the sun and moon; it was for the best that she left with Katt instead of putting herself in needlessly danger.

“I’ll take a babysitting gig over that suicide run gladly. Just don’t die doing what you have to in ending the war once and for all; I think it’s kind of insane but if you are able to pull it off…” Katt Monroe trailed off and saw that the four men at the table were already feeling the loss of their nude space hippie already. “So how soon do you want me and your little cuddle toy here gone?”

“As soon as possible and when she’s done gathered her things, I’m paying you up front right now so don’t disappoint me by just running off with the money. After you two set off we’re going to head off full tilt into area six and we’re not stopping for anything once we start our assault, as after we go through that we’ll have direct access to Venom and we can take the fight to him once and for all.” His tone seemed a little too cool, but Fox was really making the right decision here to have her away from the action. “You’ve already been exposed to more than enough horrors of our war than I’m comfortable with Fluttershy.”

“Oh, its okay, I’m sure everything will work out in the end.” Fluttershy said honestly, she hoped them the best and expected the worst after hearing area six described as a ‘suicide run’ by Katt. As she exited the room she turned her head back to them and smiled softly. “I guess I’ll go get some things together right now, is it alright with you if I take a few things with me? I mean if it’s not a bother if I take some supplies that we might need; maybe I can take a while in doing that to give you some time in case any of you need to say something to me before I have to leave with Katt?”

Fluttershy exited without waiting for a response and started to the room she had on this ship gathering together some things the crew had shared with her. She had a picture of the entire team, the translating headset from Slip, a medical kit and a small box full of nutrient bars as they had a surplus enough to last those two years. This was all she felt she could really take from the ship aside from her saddlebags which were still in good condition. It was going to be hard saying goodbye to her new friends that she might never see again. It only made her think of her pony friends again; she was also hoping that her house in Equestria would still be standing if she ever got back home.

Comments

[TheCommunistDog]

Fluttershy exited without waiting for a response and started to the room she had on this ship gathering together some things the crew had shared with her. She had a picture of the entire team, the translating headset from Slip, a medical kit and a small box full of nutrient bars as they had a surplus enough to last those two years. This was all she felt she could really take from the ship aside from her saddlebags which were still in good condition. It was going to be hard saying goodbye to her new friends that she might never see again. It only made her think of her pony friends again; she was also hoping that her house in Equestria would still be standing if she ever got back home.

More like if Equestria still stands... You know with its constant attacks from OP villains.