• Published 8th Aug 2014
  • 2,789 Views, 271 Comments

Yonder Wandered Fluttershy - Darkonshadows



Fluttershy is a long way from home; will she survive the harsh and crazy universe while exploring its many wonders? She loves everything after all, now she has to prove that she does and it may just keep her alive.

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73

“So in essence the Space Rangers are going to be busy for quite a while with so many of us out of action and the lack of cruisers to keep things under control means we’ll have to pull double shifts. We might have busted almost all of Zurg’s contacts and his empire, but this doesn’t mean that the criminals of the Galactic Alliance have stopped doing anything.” After a moment Betina looked a little put off with her ears wilted. “In fact I and the other rangers are going to be busier than ever, even the Galactic Guardians are increasing their patrols. This is basically all the vacation I’ll be getting for a while, hope this will be fun at least.”

“I hope so too.” Fluttershy couldn’t wait until the bus arrived; she wondered what the Galactic Conjunction would look like. She immediately became incredibly shy the second she stepped off the bus when it finally came to a stop, for the second she stepped off she saw thousands of different kinds of aliens.

“Wow, they weren’t kidding when they said a lot of races from across the alliance gathered here for this event.” Betina looked around at all the alien beings meandering around. “Stick close and don’t wander too far off. If you need something just ask, I’ve got some money.”

Betina eventually guided Fluttershy and Roller to the booth where they could sign up for the race; there were all kinds of merchants here peddling their wares and snacks of all kinds. There was even a booth from Rhizome here selling food, the owners recognized Fluttershy and were happy to see her again.

-

Thus Fluttershy was here with five minutes left while the people waited for the race to start. She had gone through most of her preparations for this race; eat a snack from the Rhizome booth, had something to drink and went to the bathroom.

Roller did something similar to what Fluttershy did. Only he just ate and absorbed some liquid, he needed no bathroom and he was ready to put his tire to the test and was revving in excitement to start going. He understood what racing was, but he didn’t exactly understand why they had to wait for it to start and was getting a bit impatient.

The sound of four hooves walking up to Fluttershy drew her attention and she saw Betina with a LGM riding her back trotting up to her.

“Your ship should be done soon friend, it will be waiting for you at Star Command when you are ready to pick it up.” The LGM was like every other LGM, average, green and three eyes. Only he seemed livelier than the others. “I will ride back to Star Command with you and Ranger Bucks-a-ton, should we survive.”

“Hey if this is going to be my vacation time, I might as well do something exciting. This little independent thinker here wanted to enter, but he couldn’t find a good mount so I volunteered to do some running. I’m not that bad at a gallop, doubt I’ll place in the top ten though. A lot of these other guys look pretty fast.” Checking her pistol’s charge, Betina started eyeing the other contestants with something approaching scrutiny as she holstered her blaster. This race would be the perfect opportunity for someone to attack Fluttershy with impunity; it would be legal to as they had both signed a waiver. She wasn’t about to let the ambassador run into trouble without some backup from a sister who also had hooves. “Hope you get first place Fluttershy. You’d really save us some money if you do; I’m going to try for first place as well if I get a chance to do so. I’m not exactly good for it if this becomes a marathon.”

“I’m sure we’ll both do okay Betina.” As far as sweet sentiments went, it was nice to Fluttershy that someone was watching out for her on the racetrack. She shivered at all the stares she had been getting as she slowly mounted Roller, the race was about to begin and she was incredibly nervous about the waiver regarding injuries during the obstacles. At least they said they’d rescue trapped racers if they got stuck. After a moment she decided to ask about something Betina mentioned. “Um… what do you mean by, ‘it will save you money’?”

“We’re all friends here Fluttershy, please just call me Betsy.” Betina gave a broad smile to Fluttershy as she kept eyeing the crowd of races for the more malicious looking types. This race was something she actually wanted to do and if she could look out for Fluttershy while doing it then that was just a bonus to her. “Anyway, what I mean is that even if neither of us wins, I and the other rangers are willing to chip in and pay Bonnie’s bail for you. We’re hoping you win though, as it would be much easier on us.”

“Really, oh that’s wonderful news Betsy! I found a Star Nomad and I’ll be able to take Bonnie with me when I go to earth to save Clyde and I’m hopefully one step closer to home. Maybe we should…” Fluttershy was about to suggest she drop out until she saw how Roller looked raring to go. She thought about how he’d be so disappointed if he wasn’t able to race, he wanted to compete and she just couldn’t do that to him after getting his hopes up. “Try our best to win this race Betsy.”

“Just be safe, you don’t need to win for our sakes.” Betsy just looked at how Fluttershy stared down at Roller who was bouncing with excitement; she smiled a bit at that. Despite Fluttershy’s obvious nervousness of being in one of the biggest yearly events in the Galactic Alliance, she was still willing to go through with it for a friend and close companion.

“I too would help pay for Bonnie’s bail, we are eternally grateful for the opportunity to work on a ship of The Claw.” The LGMs didn’t want to be left out of helping some friends.

-

“Racers take you’re positions, the countdown is about to begin.” As the announcer for these events spoke, Roller moved into a position to the far left side of starting line which he felt as being far enough away from Sylvia.

Roller was being smart by not being near or behind Sylvia as he recognized an apex level creature when he saw one, especially when her eye got somewhat red and her comb sharpened out slightly. All Wheelies knew a dangerous being when they saw one and Kirby was definitely one of the most dangerous ones to ever exist, size really didn’t matter when it came to identifying something as being very dangerous. He thought he was making a very good judgment call to not be anywhere near Sylvia when this started, judging by her stance it would be especially bad to be directly behind her when she started running.

“Now Roller, don’t go until the countdown finishes.” It was a little misunderstanding on Fluttershy’s part as to why Roller moved to the far left side of the starting line and so close to it. That misunderstanding would soon fix itself.

Roller revved that he understood and had a reason for moving to this position, his pipes went erect and his eyes narrowed, his carapace moved forward slightly and Fluttershy readjusted herself to hold onto him better.

“Get ready, three… two… one… go!” As soon as the announcer finished counting down and the lights above the arch hit green an explosion happened to the right of Roller as he shot off after the blue blur on two legs.

Fluttershy was slightly shocked at how fast Sylvia had left starting line, she looked back and was even more shocked to see that a lot of the competitors that had been too close to Sylvia had been blown over by the sonic boom she caused. Looking forward she could see that Roller was intent on keeping up with Sylvia. The Zbornak was one of the fastest beings Fluttershy had ever seen, she was faster on foot than Rainbow was in the air and that was saying something considering the sonic boom that disabled quite a few of the other races. She could completely understand why Roller moved to the left now.

Not all the racers had been unlucky enough to be caught by the explosion Sylvia caused at the starting line, but it was easy to see why she was called ‘The Time Bomb’ given what she just did. There were still other racers who had managed their own start just as good as Sylvia without getting caught in her rather explosive start.

She turned to face forward and looked ahead the track seemed straight so far, an ominous glow coming from above caught Fluttershy’s attention. Looking up, she quickly jerked to the right and Roller responded immediately moving them out of the way of a flaming rock that struck the track.

“What the flipping grabnar!” Sylvia sidestepped out the way of a flaming boulder while keeping her momentum; she looked behind her and her eyes widened. “Why is he here? Wander we got company, Lord Haters trying to kill us legally now and I’m terrified at the prospect that he’d do anything legally!”

“Come on Sylvia I don’t think he’s trying to kill us, he’s our friend and I think he’s just making things more fun for everyone!” A smiling Wander received an annoyed grunt from his best friend in the whole universe as she leapt out of the way of another fireball crashing into the ground. He continued to stay optimistic as Sylvia charged down the straightaway followed by several other racers who had managed to catch up.

Fluttershy being curious as to whom Sylvia was talking about, turned her head back while letting Roller steer himself. She saw a large four legged beast that looked something like a bandersnatch with large tusks dragging a big catapult like device with a throne on it. Said throne held a skeletal headed creature with glowing green angry eyes and he positively looked livid, he seemed to be yelling at a bunch of bipedal one eyed beings who worked together to load another fireball onto the launching mechanism.

“Wander, I’m not your friend and I’m totally trying to kill you!” The skeletal creature could be heard shouting forward to Wander, his voice carried really well for someone who didn’t have vocal chords.

Fluttershy’s ears wilted at hearing that someone was actively trying to kill the star nomad she just found, she just couldn’t let that happen. Looking to Wander, she saw that he didn’t seem to be panicking like his mount Sylvia was about the flaming balls of fire striking the racetrack. She had to think of a way to keep him safe, she was also curious as to how much ammo that catapult had as it didn’t seem like it was running out of shots anytime soon.

“Captain Sweet Cheeks you’re end is nigh and I will drink from your neck right here and now!” Following the familiar screaming voice was a loud yodeling scream that came from behind Fluttershy. The pony hunkered down and soon the pink petals on her helmet flew temporarily into the right side of her face for a few seconds from the force of the missed attack that would have taken off her head.

Through her left eye, Fluttershy saw a large four legged, snake fanged, sickly yellow colored lizard creature and that Herja the Valkyran Captain of the Bloody Retaliation was riding it. It made her wonder how this could possibly get any worse; obviously the rangers hadn’t captured the Valkyrans that Fox and his team had quickly disabled. It was about this time that the first obstacle came into play as the road split into two different slightly narrower roads that corkscrewed and intersected with each other multiple times.

The large snake monster lunged to take a bite out of Fluttershy when Herja pointed her mace at the pony. Roller quickly veered up the left road while the oblivious rider and large dangerous lizard creature hit the median and nearly fell off the space bound racetrack. Its tail lashed out and the vicious looking spikes at the tip caught the edge of the right road before it fell too far.

Fluttershy felt the blood rush to her head as her entire body inverted upside down for a few seconds and they almost collided with Sylvia as they crossed paths. She was surprised that Sylivia was managing to stick to the track so well, most likely because of her forward momentum was incredible enough that it didn’t matter if she was running along a wall, floor or ceiling.

The two roads twisted into each other several more times, sometimes crossing when Fluttershy was horizontal, upside down or right side up. It was beginning to get dizzying to her until they came out of the two opposing corkscrews right side up.

Roller, who was paying some really good attention to the track, started drifting into the upwards counterclockwise spiral. Looking up a bit at were the spiral ultimately led to, he saw that it led to an almost straight vertical drop. Once they hit the top of the spiral, he straightened himself out and shot forward and straight down with Fluttershy screaming at the sudden change in direction. While Roller wouldn’t let her get hurt, he wasn’t about to slow down now.

“Stop dodging and bloody yourself upon my mace you cowarrrr…!” A screaming Herja fell past a confused Fluttershy as the lizard didn’t handle the sudden downwards turn too well and it fell right off the edge. It rolled as it hit the bottom of the steep downwards slope that was quickly becoming less steep. After the tumble both Herja and her horrific spiny lizard creature looked to have been temporarily stunned and battered as they came to a halt on the racetrack.

Having passed by what would soon be looking like a constant attempt on her life, Fluttershy looked around and noticed that she and Roller had gained a small lead over the other races with Roller’s ability to handle and adapt to the track so well. She looked at what was ahead, the racetrack opened into a large vast looking ocean or a really big lake. There were these funny arrow symbols at the end of the track leading straight into the water.

“Hot, hot, hot, hot, my hooves are burning; they are literally on fire here!” A panicking Betina went skidding right on by Fluttershy and Roller at high speeds with her hooves on fire and kicking up a lot of sparks. It looked like she was trying to slow down and was failing horrible at it. She hit the panel at the end of the road ahead of Fluttershy and she sped up even further to start skidding across the water with her legs splayed out like a water strider. The LGM cheered her on as a wall of steam rose up from her hooves as they were quickly doused from skidding across the top of the water. “Much better, but I’m still out of control!”

Fluttershy grimaced at what was happening to Betsy and soon Roller himself hit the panel as did Sylvia a second later, followed by a bunch of beam weapons firing at her backside by Lord Haters one eyed henchman wielding blasters. She noted that unlike Betsy, the little one eyed guys didn’t seem to have any depth perception making all their shots miss horrendously and they were more likely to hit anyone but Wander and Sylvia.

Everyone was moving across the top of the water at high speeds, Roller and Sylvia were actively keeping their momentum going whereas a hapless Betina was still coasting on her previous momentum ahead of them. The large monster that was dragging Haters catapult was having problems keeping up the momentum and was slowly starting to bog down into the water because of its size.

It was a few seconds after they all hit the water that several humongous blue serpentine monsters that had cobra hoods with gills burst out of the water at the racers trying to swallow them whole. Sylvia continued to run forward and decked the monster that came at her in the side of the face knocking it back into the water.

Trying to keep her balance as she skid across the top of the water while quickly losing speed, Betsy started shooting at the serpents to keep them from going for her.

Roller had drawn ones attention in particular and dodged several lunges. It soon jumped high into the air and came down on Fluttershy and Roller with its mouth wide open and unhinged ready to swallow them alive. Not happy about the large creature bearing down on them, he charged up a star shaped mass of energy above a cowering Fluttershy’s back. When the water serpent was close enough, he fired it into the chin of the beast causing it to create a small wave as it flopped in a boneless manner back into the water.

“Are the scary monsters gone yet?” Ask a silly question because they almost ran into another ones mouth as Fluttershy looked up from her hooves, she gave off a yelp as Roller veered around the closing mouth full of teeth trying to snap down on them. Fluttershy shuddered as she stared back at the lurking terrors shadow as it slid beneath the rolling waves they were shooting across the top of.

Looking forward Fluttershy could see that they were almost three fourths the way across and she could clearly see Betsy falling into the water. She wondered how much harder it was for Betsy to swim and saw some shadows lurking in the water around the alien centaur.

“Roller, we have to save Betsy, get us close as you can to her!” Fluttershy cared more about her friend than the race; she also cared about Wander’s safety as she had lost sight of him and Sylvia. Roller listened to her and swept his way across the top of the water for Betsy; she had to think of a way to help her. After flicking her green covered tail underneath her yellow petal skirt a figurative light bulb appeared above Fluttershy’s head. “Betsy grab on!”

Betsy was kicking and trying to stay above the water, both she and the LGM looked to Fluttershy in shock that she’d change course for them. Roller slowed down as they passed by Betsy and she managed to grab the end of Fluttershy’s tail in her right hand. This was while she was firing shot after shot at the leviathan type creature rearing up out of the water behind them. The blaster pistol she held in her left hand was having some effect of keeping it from lunging forward and swallowing them all as Fluttershy and Roller towed her and the LGM to safety.

Roller kicked up more water as he increased his speed and started dragging the extra weight along as Fluttershy clamped down tightly to him with all four hooves as her tail pulled taught. Roller dragged the other two racers the rest of the distance and up to the racetrack where Betsy finally let go and quickly caught her footing as she wobbled a bit before standing tall. Roller stopped for a moment.

“Go on, we’ll be fine now!” Betsy didn’t need to tell Roller twice and she yelled at the duo as they sped off. “Thanks for the save; hey, I’m the one that is supposed to be watching your back! Goddess, I need a breather.”

“She has saved our lives, we should be eternally grateful!” The LGM said with a cheeky smile on his chubby little face.

Now that they were back on the racetrack, Fluttershy continued looking out for what the next obstacle was as the track veered to the right into an asteroid field. It was full of massive rocks that bounced off the track despite the fact that they looked like they should be going straight through it. Something that felt like magic was in the air and given how the racetrack formed each year, Fluttershy guessed it was some cosmic magical power that was like Discord creating these wacky and quite dangerous race courses.

Up ahead a large asteroid was sitting on the track and it had a Sylvia shaped imprint on it, she had apparently ran into it at full speed without somehow snapping her neck. Sylvia was busy trying to lift the asteroid off the track as it was obstructing her and the other racers. While they were all stopped, the other racers had to dodge being pelted with smaller asteroids and the like constantly hitting the track.

Looking up Fluttershy could see a bigger asteroid slowly falling towards the other racers that were too busy dodging the asteroids to really pay attention to the danger they were all in. Roller came to a stop; he did not want to be in the path of the massive asteroid that was about to crash into the track.

“Roller we need to warn them… please?” It was up to Fluttershy as Roller seemed reluctant to go near where the asteroid was crashing down on everyone, but he did so anyway. “Everyone come back this way, there’s a… are they even technically asteroids if they’re in an atmospheric environment?”

The soft spoken pony hadn’t drawn all the other dodging racers attentions, there had to be some form of atmosphere as the other racers weren’t as protected or wearing suits.

Roller thought Fluttershy was being too quiet and he revved loudly getting everyone’s attention, it certainly shocked Fluttershy back to the matter at hoof. He whined that Fluttershy should point out where to look now and she quickly pointed straight upwards with her left hoof, all the racers ran back the way they came when they saw it. They all made it to a safe distance out of the way of the humongous asteroid that crashed into and subsequently knocked the other impeding asteroid off the path.

-

“The racers seem to have narrowly avoided getting crushed thanks to a timely intervention by Flutter and Roller, but will our racers be able to take on all the other upcoming obstacles? Stay tuned as they continue through the crushing asteroid zone!” The announcer was talking to everyone who was watching the race on screen; a number popped up showing that as many as four hundred and sixty seven racers had been disqualified thus far or were unable to continue.

Author's Note:

Played video games, visited family after they had a knee replacement in a rehab center that doesn't care about people being lactose intolerant apparently. Given that the person in question received a grilled cheese sandwich, ice cream and cucumbers covered in sour cream for a meal.

It's not funny to being allergic to some foods.

I was there and ate the ice cream personally. If you go to a rehab center make sure they know about your food allergies, because I swear someone with peanut allergy went into an anaphylactic shock somewhere in there and it was most likely covered up.

Can I make another chapter and will the race last four thousand more words?

We'll see, because this is kind of Roller's jam.

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