Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

8

Why did the universe have to hurt so much? Her head and wing felt awful. Fluttershy let off a scream when she opened her eyes, it was so dark. Luckily she never screamed loudly unless she was excited which was not a usual state you’d see Fluttershy in.

“What in the… oh you’re awake Fluttershy. I told you not to look back; I had to carry you out of there. It’s a good thing you’re not very heavy or we would be having a talk about what you have been eating to weigh as much as dark matter.” It was Katt’s voice but it was so dark, Fluttershy could only see her eyes. “I’m glad your okay, how are you feeling.”

“It hurts.” Not being able to help but whimper Fluttershy cuddled into the closest thing at hand, which was in fact Katt. “Where are we?”

“Well I did grab and throw you by your mane, I’m sorry about that by the way. You kind of froze up there for a moment after hit the self destruct and started the smokescreen. You face planted when you tried to fly taking a huge knock to your noggin, that happened when you got shot through your right wing and you were also launched into the wall by the explosion. I have to admit you’re a tough little thing, for a cuddle toy at least. As to where we are well… that’s not exactly good news.” Katt sighed and pulled Fluttershy into her arms and started to pet her carefully as to not touch the bruise on her forehead. “I found out a lot while you were out, we’re no longer in my home of the Lylat System and this ship we’re on is bad news all around.”

“How come, we’re still alive aren’t we? Isn’t that good news?” Fluttershy could only see a pair of eyes in the dark that didn’t look happy or willing to tell her something.

“If you consider a mind controlled violent race of amphibians, beaten bloody slaves and being trapped on said large warship that has both good news. Then we’re doing just peachy.” After a moment Katt decided to go to Fluttershy’s previous question. “We’re on the lower levels of this massive ship in some air vents located around their engines, whoever designed this ship had something in mind with killing the entire crew and all the slaves just in case that mind control ever wears off. At least that’s what I think the option for venting everything on the ship to open space is for. It gives us a perfect place to hide, but at the same time it tells me I went from messing with that mad monkey in my system to dealing with something else entirely. I don’t even know why I’m even telling you this, you’ve probably don’t even understand what mind control is.”

“Um… actually my friend’s brother was put under mind control a long while before I ended up in space.” Fluttershy started off hesitantly, she reached up and cringed at touching her forehead with a hoof. She whimpered and tears started to come to her eyes until she felt a pair of lips kiss her forehead softly. “Thank you.”

“It’s okay, I’m here for you. You’re right that we’re still alive; we can still do things as we’re not entirely trapped in a corner and it’s a lucky coincidence that your translator is undamaged after those tumbles you took. What we can still do is what matters in the end. Unfortunately the money Fox forwarded to me is useless in this system we’re currently in. So what was this thing I hear about your friend’s brother becoming mind controlled, it certainly sounds like a story to get our minds off the situation at hand or in your case hoof.” Katt watched as Fluttershy shyly shrunk into herself and then took in a deep breath.

“Well… it all started one day when I and my friends were having a picnic on the grassy hills of our world… and my friend Twilight received a wedding invitation.” Fluttershy was going to tell Katt the story of the changelings, it was sad in some ways and bright and happy in others. Most of her friends forgot what became of the changelings after they were launched away, only Fluttershy hadn’t and they had all been hurt and injured being tossed far away from the capital city of Canterlot. She felt sorry for what became of the changelings who were just hungry and needed food, but kidnapping and mind control wasn’t the right way to go about it. If they had only asked for help maybe Celestia could have given it to them, instead of their queen got them to turn their backs on Twilight.

Meanwhile out in a different part of space… there was a giant planet sized eyeball blinking curiously in a specific direction, eventually the eye transformed back into a planet. This was the planet of Equus and the one who had just returned it to its natural state was none other than Discord.

“Well it seems I’ve found our wayward friend out there, but getting to her or vice versa is going to be a might bit… difficult… especially when she’s always moving around so much.” Discord the chimerical creature of chaos shook his head sadly; his best friend was trapped in the belly of what looked like a giant space turtle with creatures that had negative auras compared to her bright positive shining one that almost blinded him to stare at directly at for too long.

“Difficult how Discord, couldn’t you just snap your claws or something and just bring her straight home!” Rainbow stated huffily as she flew up into his face.

“I would if I could Rainbow, I don’t like to admit it but there are limitations to my powers over chaos and my powers can only work on this planet and as long as I’m near it. As such, while it’s not impossible for us to go to her it could be an eternity before we’d find her and it’ll be hard for her to come to us since she probably doesn’t even know how to find a way back home to our planet. That is not to say we can’t see what she’s currently doing, but I can only change the planet into an eyeball for so long and I don’t think turning it into an ear will let us hear anything from her. You can’t truly hear anything when there is nothing but space between your ears after all. Here, let me show you what I saw.” With a snap of his griffon like claw, an image appeared floating in midair showing Katt and Fluttershy huddled together in a dark place. The image zoomed out to show the space ship they were on and quite a few other things about it. “It appears our dear Fluttershy has gotten into quite a dangerous pickle, oh I so do hope that whoever it was that caused her such pain comes to us for visit. I shall endeavor to be a part of the welcoming committee.”

“All we needed to know was that she’s still alive Discord, thank you for doing that much for us. We can only hope that she can find a way home.” Twilight saw that Fluttershy was making friends out there, one that looked like an unusually large cat and she smiled. Fluttershy wasn’t the best pony at making friends on her own without some pony else introducing her, but that she had made one said a lot. “Please stay safe and find your way home to us Fluttershy.”

Back with Fluttershy, she had just finished telling Katt the story of Queen Chrysalis.

“And I’ve felt sorry for the changelings ever since.” Fluttershy wasn’t going to hide the fact that she felt bad about how things had turned out.

“How can you feel sorry for them they wrecked a wedding, attacked your capital in force and made you turn your back on your friend?” Katt didn’t raise her voice; she was more curious then angry.

“Yes they postponed the wedding, but they didn’t force me to turn my back on my friend and there wasn’t a single pony casualty throughout the entire invasion.” That Fluttershy could shut her up so fast was miraculous, Katt looked like she wanted to ask a question but didn’t have the heart to voice it. The very question Fluttershy had heard the answer to without meaning to ever hear it; just exactly how many changelings had perished in their attack on Canterlot.

“Has anybody ever told you that you are too kind for your own good?” Katt winced and grabbed at her left shoulder, some blood seeped through her fingers and was heard splattering the floor next to the light her data pad was giving off. “Darn, all that moving around must have reopened my wound. I’m so glad they weren’t using lasers, would have made my shoulder useless. Damn it all, getting shot still hurts.”

“Oh my goodness are you okay? Oh no you’re bleeding, here let me help you with that.” Fluttershy and Katt both had their own supplies and they were currently pooled together, they had eaten some ration bars while she was telling her story.

“Yeah, one of the Croakers managed wing me before my ship exploded too. We’ve been pinned down by a bunch of relatively stupid bipedal toads. I can tell you already that they have nothing in common with Slip’s family, so I’ve been calling them Croakers to differentiate between the two of them.” Katt hissed while tensing up her shoulder as Fluttershy gently wrapped and pulled the bandages tight around the wound. “I’ve managed to mine some data from a few parts of this mother-ship and I wouldn’t want to be caught alive. They have slaves onboard in the lower areas, a lot of shock troops the next level up and beyond that is a hangar with their fighters is under heavy guard. We’re as far away from any trouble as we can possibly be, but getting off this ship without getting caught is going to take a miracle.”

“You said something about mind control earlier?” Fluttershy had to get her mind off of the wound and she was busy trying not to think of her own bandaged wing as it twitched causing her some agony.

“Yeah they, the Croakers that is, built an intelligent computer that is something like Rob Sixty Four and something went horribly wrong. Now the Croakers follow its every order hardly questioning it and it is constantly broadcasting its mind control over the entire ship. For some odd reason it has no effect on anything aside from the Croakers so we’re definitely safe from it.” Picking up her data pad Katt starting going over the things she had discovered from sneaking around the ship while Fluttershy was out cold. “While it is using them as pawns, this artificially created intelligent monster the Croakers made is not throwing them away pointlessly. The fighters these guys fly are designed to be expendable while keeping the pilots alive. Those red bubbles release some kind of protective shield that keep the pilots safe on destruction that are drawn immediately back to this Croakers mother-ship on a wavelength specific tractor beam where they can immediately get into another fighter. It wasn’t long after learning about the fighters did I cross that disturbing bit of info on the venting system and yet it has never been used to date as far as I can tell. That’s a good thing considering we’re in one of those vents at this moment. There are several ships like this in the Croakers fleet and they are all equally this big.”

“Is there anything else you want to tell me that I probably won’t understand very well?” Fluttershy was still busy trying to wrap her mind around all of this, she didn’t understand very much except that something like Rob was controlling these Croakers and was willing to kill all of them if they so much as tried to turn on it, if they ever broke free from the mind control that is. It seemed a bit odd, but when it came to evil sometimes things were beyond understanding.

“I’m still trying to decipher the name of their mind controlling mastermind; all I keep getting is ‘feed me’ from what I’m translating and I’m not afraid to say that scares me. The written languages of the races in this system are completely different, but our spoken language and mathematics are practically identical with a few small differences here and there. That led me to some startling information, this sector of space houses species genetically similar to those found in the Lylat System, we’re basically offshoots of one another. Biggest difference between us if that they are shorter than anyone you’d see in the Lylat System that’s for sure.” Katt showed Fluttershy the data of the Croakers before and after the arrival of the mind control machine. Next on the screen it showed a cat that looked kind of like an inverse of Katt Monroe with long pink hair flowing from her head and tail that made her look like a princess in comparison to Katt’s tomboy appearance with her short white hair and her pink fur. “Who we’re looking at right now is a very distant cousin of mine; anyone who’s not a Croaker in this system has very little military presence in comparison. It’s a good thing that the Croakers aren’t as aggressive as they are dumb thanks to the machine that’s manipulating them. Suffice it to say, we went from being safe in the middle of a war that was about to end to being in the middle of another war that is still in progress, if really slow looking progress at that.”

“Is there anything we can do to help these Croakers and the captured slaves? I don’t know how to stop a war, but I want to help those affected by it.” Fluttershy asked tentatively as she wasn’t a soldier and this was a little beyond her ability to cope with or even understand all the cruelties going on here.

“Well we can possibly try and get the slaves off this ship, but I don’t think the Croakers will even want or acknowledge our help as they seem to hate any other species but their own race. It’d be much easier for just the two of us to escape alone.” Seeing the frown on her friends face Katt tried to think of something to say to Fluttershy to convince her that trying to save all the slaves would be a bad idea. “Look we’re only two beings and trying break free more than a thousand slaves at once only for the entire ship to suddenly vent all the air out killing you, me and just about everyone onboard would be a tragedy. As I said it’ll be a miracle if even we can escape safely. The slaves have a much better chance of survival if we were to just leave them be for the moment and rescue them later.”

“I know it seems like a bad idea, but I want to help them.” Fluttershy didn’t care how stupid it was to face such odds; she didn’t like seeing others in pain or suffering. Lying down on the floor of the vent she gave Katt what she thought was a stern look. “You can escape if you want to without me, I’ll figure a way to help them out by myself somehow.”

“Well if you want to help them cuddle toy, I’m with you even if I don’t like it. Fox paid me to keep you safe and that’s what I’m going to do until I can find a safe place to drop you off.” After saying that Katt had gained an amused smile and looked at Fluttershy while rubbing her back. This thing that called itself a pony was just plain adorable. “Of course if you’re going to keep running head first into danger like the stubborn ponies that I’m sure you’ll keep telling me about, then who am I to complain that nowhere is truly safe for you? I’ll start hacking into the systems visuals so we can get a look at the slaves.”

Fluttershy smiled as Katt was loyally sticking by her side. Instead of leaving her in a place she didn’t understand or know very well where there were all kinds of ways that she’d get herself killed. As a pony she believed in doing the right thing and sometimes it wasn’t the easiest or smartest thing to do, looking at the data pad screen she could see the state the slaves were in as Katt brought it up. A lot of them looked like rabbits; a few were cats, pigs, squirrels, dogs and even large baboon thing that was bound heavily in chains. All of them were bipedal with hands like Katt.

“Can you think of a plan that won’t hurt anyone Katt?” It wasn’t that Fluttershy knew of a peaceful solution to the problem at hoof, she was just hopeful that they wouldn’t have to hurt anyone.

“Well I do owe these bastards a bit of revenge for Catspaw; just know that helping those slaves without having to resort to violence is impossible. If the Croaker patrols see us at all, they will shoot. I’m not going to let them do enslave you Fluttershy and you must realize that you are in fact putting me in the line of fire when we finally do have a plan. Because I’m going to die before you do come hell or airless vacuum of space.” Katt didn’t see Fluttershy waver very much in her resolve; she just shook her head and laughed as she ran her fingers through the soft mane. “You’re really adorable. Another thing we have to consider is supplies, how are we going to feed them all or even get them medical attention, they haven’t been treated too well and let me tell you this means there’s a lot of angry slaves to watch out for that won’t listen to us. So we won’t just be dealing with the Croakers alone, but the people native to this system that they’ve captured if they don’t want to go along with whatever we plan.”

“Well we know where everything on the ship is… what if we can get a large enough ship and carry all the slaves to a safe place or find some way to get the supplies to them or do both?” Fluttershy wasn’t about to let this one thing go unanswered. “I don’t like the idea that these people are stuck in confined spaces while we go flying off into the unknown leaving them behind to be hurt and abused.”

“Good point, I don’t know my way around space in this system and we’d just as easily get lost as you were when you were found by Fox and his crew, lucky breaks don’t happen twice in a row in space. We’re not going to last very long on these ration bars and we really need a brilliant plan if we’re going to save all the slaves like you want to do.” Katt leaned back against the wall of the vent and looked up at her data pad she had in her paw and started to go over the specs of the entire Croaker mother-ship and the few other ships they had onboard. “I think I might see a way, but there would have to be quite a few of those in the hangar and we’d have to disable all the fighters since those things aren’t armed with any weapons.”

“It never hurts to help, maybe we can try… um… the slaves might have some ideas.” Fluttershy was stretching out her hooves while trying to come up with a concrete idea; she looked to the floor and sighed sadly. What good will her element of kindness be if it got her killed before she could help anyone? “If only my special talent was more helpful in this situation…”

“Fluttershy… I think you just gave me a really good idea. We’re going to need to get on the good side of all those slaves before we try anything and what better way to befriend them then with a friendly face. Especially one that can’t possibly be threatening like yours to help ease them into a plan I just might be cooking up.” Katt had a very evil smirk on her face; the innocent and adorable pony was going to be the head of one massive jailbreak and all she had to do was think of things in a slightly different way. Flutteshy had her special talent with animals and beasts on top of her shy gentle demeanor and infinitely kind nature. Katt Monroe had her own special talent when it came to stealing things and it was about time she started using her ability to its full potential. “I’ve been shot down nine times Fluttershy and I’ve been a bit weary of continuing on after the loss of my Catspaw, but now I figure I’ve got more lives in me to spare and I’m feeling a bit crazy. Let’s steal everything we can right out from under their noses!”

Comments

[nerdosoide]

Hah she said it never hurts to help!!!!!

[Silent_Knight]

7537192
Just saying that statement hurts :P lol

[itsune9tl]

7537192
Tell that to some one whose Broken bons have just been reset. Some times getting the help you need hurts worse than What ever hit you the first time.