Yonder Wandered Fluttershy

by Darkonshadows

9

A gaggle of toads marched down the hallway past a vent and as they turned the corner, the vent opened up slightly leaving Fluttershy to poke her nose out and look both ways. She was shivering with fright, this was her suggestion and she had to see it through. The corridors were lined randomly with steam pipes and the color scheme was random green, grey and purple hallways. Taking small steps she looked around and started idle along the well lit corridor looking out for those visual devices, it wouldn’t do to be caught in their sight.

Turning down several hallways she came to a corner where she stopped when she heard voices, she crouched down and crept up to look around the bend in the hallway. She could see the slave pens from here, there were two of those Croakers talking to each other and watching screens that had nothing to do with the visual devices she had to stay out of sight of. It might have been scary, but she had a job to do and Katt was counting on her to get the slaves in on their plans. Why did outer space have to be so scary, why couldn’t it just be friendly and filled with fluffy cuddly little animals?

Crouching down to her belly she slowly crawled her way towards the two talking toad beings as they sat in their chairs and snacked away lazily at some consoles.

“The mammals are always moaning about something Frix; can’t we do anything about it?” The voice of the toad caused Fluttershy to jerk slightly before she squished herself into a ball out of their sight and hoped they didn’t see her behind the console. Sometimes being a really quiet pony really helped her out and this was one of those cases that it was extremely important that she not let out peep.

“No we can’t Frax; we are to keep a watch over them until we can deliver them to factories on our home world and then they’ll work there for the rest of their lives. We can’t just beat them up until they quiet down, they need able bodied mammals to work on building more climate converters elsewhere and the previous slave watchers beat them up too much. I heard they even badly mutilated a few of them fur balls.” The other toad sounded a bit angry that his snacking time was being interrupted. “Besides it’s not like they can escape, this is a pretty sweet gig all around I think. All the free Toad TV and food we can eat.”

Fluttershy uncurled herself and poked her head up over the console; the toads didn’t notice her as they continued to watch the screens and the strange things happening on them. She kept them in view as she backed away towards where the cells holding the slaves, they were far enough away that Fluttershy didn’t have to worry about being seen by the Croakers anymore. She just had to be careful to avoid the visual devices watching the slaves, Katt had called them cameras but they didn’t take singular pictures like one and would detect and see anything that entered their view.

Taking her first look at the slaves up close and personal caused her heart to go out to them, they were in worse looking conditions than the camera had shown. She wanted to cry for them, if she wasn’t already here to help them out of this predicament. She looked around for someone who was near to entrance to the first cell on her left.

They were all wearing bright orange jumpsuits and they were battered, bloody and some of them were cradling broken limbs, others looked to have been gutted at some point where their fur was patchy and the stitches were quite well below any form of competency. It was as if the Croakers didn’t know a single thing about medical practices and performed unnecessary invasive surgery. It was either that horrific thought or the slaves were given what little they could use to patch themselves up as it appeared one of them was using a ripped off sleeve as a makeshift sling. She decided to test the waters by getting the attention of a slave.

“Excuse me… hello.” Fluttershy tried quietly, a green male rabbit quirked an ear and he looked around questioningly. “Yes over here near the door, I want to talk to you.”

“What?” The male rabbit moved over to the cell door and looked around; he looked down and jumped in surprise as he saw a quadruped creature with wings wearing a strange headset. Her pink hair was fitting against her buttery colored coat and she looked up at him with the saddest soulful eyes he had ever seen on a creature.

“Sorry if I frightened you, my name is Fluttershy and I’m pony. I and my friend want to help get you slaves safely off the ship, but we need your cooperation. That is if you don’t mind cooperating with someone you don’t know very well.” While Fluttershy was here dealing with the slaves, Katt would be dealing with ways to sneak stuff to them for the break out and will figure out how to make a clear path to the hangar past the barracks loaded with armed trigger happy Croakers.

“A pony huh? Well aren’t you a weird looking thing, how did you escape the toads when they caught you? How many of you are there on this ship?” The rabbit was looking at her bandaged wing and the large bruise showing through the fur on her forehead, Fluttershy tried not to show she was as hurt as she looked to be.

“They didn’t exactly capture us, they got our ship but my friend blew it up so the two of us could escape and I don’t think they know we’re even here. My friend is really nice once you get to know her and she’s trying to come up with a plan to help free all of you.” Fluttershy noticed that the rabbit looked completely speechless. “My friend is going to help you escape with food, water and medical supplies on a ship or ships; she’s still working out the details on that. I’m here to find out what you need immediately and to help you personally, she and I can do a lot to help you if you’re willing to let us help you.”

“Are you for real… that’s… actually how is this friend of yours going to get us all by the security on this ship? It’s packed tight with those armed swamp loving fly eating slime heads that literally turned my home planet into a swamp when they invaded us; it used to be such a green and beautiful world.” The green rabbit sighed angrily rubbing his face slightly with a hand; he looked down at Fluttershy with hope filled eyes. “Well if you could get us some immediate medical help and some extra food, but anymore than that and I fear that you could run the risk of being caught. I’m sorry for saying this, but you don’t really look like much.”

“Even the smallest pony or person in the right place can make a world of difference, I’ll let my friend know what you’ll need and she’ll get it to you somehow. Can you spread the word to the other slaves with you that you need to be especially cooperative for a little while?” Fluttershy hoped they would listen to her, she noticed several other slaves coming over to look at her as she was a strange being in their questioning eyes that just promised them a lot.

“Yes, but why do we have to be cooperative? They viciously hurt a lot of us; one of those toads took sick pleasure in doing invasive surgery on us for no other reason than to show us our own organs. They destroyed an entire planets climate to fit their needs after taking it over, even if we get free where will we even go, the planet of Genus? They let this happen to us on Warren and if we were to escape where would we be safe from the toad menace?” A young humanoid squirrel asked looking overly pitiful in her prisoner jumpsuit and her tail was quite limp looking to have been broken at some point, her voice was simply loaded with despair.

“My friend said that they will be singing to her tune soon enough. Whatever she meant, I know it’s going to be a good thing. So please stay calm and be patient, I’m sure she has a very nice plan to get all of you safely off this ship without harm.” Fluttershy gave a brilliant smile to all of them and she tried to impart a part of her sincerity onto them. “I have to go now and tell her what you need; I Pinkie Pie Promise all of you will get off this ship and will be freed. A Pinkie Pie Promise is a promise that is impossible to break, so if I broke it the only reason why would be if I was in trouble already. Everything will be okay soon; you’ll see that all you have to do is stay strong.”

Elsewhere in the universe a pink mare serving cupcakes to her customers smiled brilliantly as she felt someone making a promise that they were definitely going to keep in her name.

“Did we just see an injured angel? We’re going to be free if we cooperate?” The slaves murmured out loud as they watched Fluttershy carefully went back the way she came with all the slaves blinking their eyes multiple times to make sure she wasn’t just a hallucination. They were still a little perplexed as they have never seen anything like her.

Fluttershy crawled by the still distracted Croakers again and made her way for the vents and she was careful to avoid the patrols. Once she reached the vent closest to where the slaves were kept, she quickly reentered the vent with no Croaker being the wiser. The vents weren’t as hard to navigate as the many twisting hallways of the huge ship, they were really quite straightforward. The reason for this was because of the venting the entire ship thing that Katt had talked about. As she made her approach to where their stuff was Fluttershy saw Katt smiling like she had just caught a big juicy bird. Not that Fluttershy would ever let Katt eat one of her birds after catching it.

“Katt, what are you smiling for?” Slightly wary Fluttershy wondered what got Katt so happy.

“These Croakers really are complete idiots. They may be on par with our technology in having plasma cannons and the maser weaponry is a bit backwards, but I doubt they’ve really ever met a hacker like me before and Fluttershy… I can do this without a single slave ever getting hurt and the Croakers will give us all the supplies we could ever need or want.” Showing Fluttershy the screen of her data pad Katt pointed out a singular small section higher up on the ship schematics that didn’t have any vents near it. “All I have to do is get to their main communications console that is located here and then I can mess this entire ship up completely. I need you as my lookout because breaking their communications network is going to take about thirty minutes, give or take a lot if they really are as stupid as they seem. After that well… you’ll see just exactly why I call myself Katt o’ nine hells Monroe. First how do you feel about grand theft fleet or as I like to call it reparations for hurting so many innocent lives?”

“After what I saw, I’m not going to complain about it Katt.” The sad look Fluttershy gave Katt didn’t dampen the cat’s mood at all.

“Good then I have nothing to worry about, except for one small crucial part. I have to get you on the ship they’ll hand to us for a steal and that being it’s free, you just can’t beat that kind of price. Unlike me you can’t just put on some prisoners clothes like I can and be put on with the rest of the slaves.” Katt hummed to herself and leaned back tapping her boot against the opposite wall of the vent. “In fact, I need you to steal me one of those prisoner uniforms or I can do it myself later, your call. Until then, did you hear anything interesting on your way to meet the slave and what did they have to say?”

“It was just awful; I heard two of the Croakers talking. I believe their names were Frix and Frax, I don’t think they were very perceptive. They were talking about how badly the previous slave watchers were and I saw the results first hoof, why would someone something horrible like that to another living being? They also said something about bringing the slaves to their home world eventually to work in factories until they…” Frowning, Fluttershy looked at the floor and the bit of her mane that stuck out from under her headset covered her face. Katt put a gentle hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze and started to rub her behind the ears softly, it gave her some courage to continue. “Anyway the slaves on some other worlds are also being forced to build these things called a climate converter; it turned a planet called Warren into a swamp world. The slaves mentioned a place called Genus we could go to that isn’t under the Croakers control, but whoever lives there let this happen to them. Oh and you get the clothing, I’m sorry but I don’t feel comfortable with stealing.”

“Interesting… that really rounds out my plan and how I’m going to get all the slaves off this ship. You’ve been a big help Fluttershy whether or not you know it, this is exactly what I needed to know. Now come on, we need to get moving. The sooner we get at the Croaker communications network the sooner we can have those slaves fed, cared for and happily far away from this ship as possible.” Katt’s attitude rose by volumes as she moved forward through the vents.

Fluttershy felt happy that her friend’s mood was so positive whereas hers wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic given the circumstances of the slaves. She ran into Katt’s butt and her tail flicked upwards tickling her nose causing her to sneeze cutely.

“Can’t you do anything that isn’t ridiculously adorable? Say, did those Frix and Frax characters seem particularly lazy and did they seem like they want to actively abuse the slaves?” Now the shy pony knew Katt was planning a long lasting prank of some kind, but she didn’t question it and decided to answer truthfully.

"I poked my head up in front of them and they didn’t even notice me, they were transfixed with watching something else other than the slaves. They didn’t seem too bad." The pony wondered why her friend wanted to know that.

“Oh that’s just absolutely perfect!” It was said rather joyously while she was clapped her hands together and started rubbing them. With a toothy grin on her face Katt continued onwards and started climbing along the vents, it made Fluttershy wonder if Katt had some form of sanity slippage due to the loss of her beloved spaceship.

If Fluttershy had to admit she had the same kind of problem when it came to her friends being hurt or injured, she became like a different pony that started staring danger in the eye and won without having to do a single solitary thing except calmly voice her disdain. Fluttershy shook her head and continued climbing up the vents; she eventually caught up to Katt who was waiting patiently for her.

The hallways was well lit as any other place in the large ship, they really had to have a good power source to be wasting so much energy on lighting everything. Fluttershy poked her head and didn’t do anything as her ears twitched slightly. She ducked back into the vent and waited a patrol of three Croaker soldiers walked on by a few seconds later. Poking her head out again once they passed, her ears twitched even more, she ducked back in and turned to Katt.

“They have lots of guards wandering around here.” Ever the worrywart Fluttershy didn’t like how many footsteps she could hear in the corridors, if being shot felt like her wing currently did then she didn’t want to be shot somewhere else.

“Then we better not get caught, you’re the one who wanted to do this without anyone getting hurt. Well the slaves need extra food and proper medical attention, if we don’t do this then they aren’t getting what they need which in turn is going to upset you. Which means I have to shoulder more responsibility, so do I have to force you down those hallways?” Katt received a soft glance from Fluttershy. The pony’s left wing drooped as she put her head up to the grating and raised an ear. “Can we move yet?”

Fluttershy held up a hoof and a single biped toad guard walked by looking around aimlessly stopping for a bit before moving on. She left the vent to carefully look around for any sign of a camera and then motioned for Katt to start moving as they were clear of any nearby guards for the moment.

Katt led them down the corridors and whenever she looked at Fluttershy and saw an ear twitching the pony would be the one to make a judgment call of whether to go or stop. It got to a point where Fluttershy needed some gentle encouragement to keep moving forward. They were easily navigating the rather blank looking metallic corridors randomly covered in bits of technology here and there, while deftly avoiding the dangerous patrols.

“Are we almost there?” Stopping the pony’s ear twitched and she looked behind them, the she poked her head around the corner in the junction in the hallway that led to the communications room there was another camera watching the area ahead of them. “There’s a camera and I hear Croakers coming behind us.”

“We’ll just have to move underneath it, we can’t slow down now.” Katt roughly grabbed Fluttershy by her mane and quickly dragged her underneath the camera where she crouched down and waited for it to turn. After it was pointed in the direction they just came from she pulled Fluttershy along to the door the camera was placed to watch over. “Sorry for pulling on your mane so much Fluttershy. Let’s see access code, one two three four five six? Wow, just wow. Alright inside before the camera comes back on us.”

Fluttershy didn’t need to be told twice as she entered the room and moved out of the doorway while looking around as Katt did the same. The door slid shut behind them before the camera could see that it had been opened. She idly wondered why there were no Croakers in the room; now all she had to do was stay near the door and warn Katt if someone was coming. The room had quite a few consoles and screens showing more of that weird stuff on them, it was pretty big and there were plenty of spots to hide in case of trouble. The area between a very dark corner and a quietly humming machine seemed cozy. Katt immediately went to work and she put her ear up to the door.

“Katt… someone’s coming and it sounds like there are a lot of them.” Pulling her ear away from the door Fluttershy quickly scampered into the corner and went prone, Katt having heard her quickly took cover behind a console as the doors opened.

Several Croakers came in calmly not having seen the intruders in the room. One of them was a large dark looking purple, green and yellow robot with triangular red eyes and a crossbones symbol on its chest. Fluttershy cowered away from it as she felt something was very off about the mechanical monster. There were several regular looking armed soldiers and a really short looking Croaker.

“We’re just not capable enough to advance into this other solar system; they are too heavily fortified and well defended unlike the UAC is here. Aside from that I want permission from Komplex to deal with quite a few of the more active thorns in our sides, my invasion of Warren went off without a hitch so I at least deserve a medal for that!” The whiny voiced toad didn’t seem like good news at all; he was stumpy looking and resembled a pickle wearing blue and bronze colored armor with lots of medals on it. He had an ego about him and seemed to be some kind of military commander; he turned to the large metallic monster and pointed at it. “I’m sure you’re presence won’t be needed here for much longer Toadborg. Once we have orders of what to do with the slaves we have onboard, I’m asking Komplex to give you something more important to do then just standing around breathing down my neck all the time!”

Comments

[Ghrathryn]

4828794
4845043

I caught Star Fox and Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars as two more crossovers, which kinda makes me wonder if Fluttershy will be meeting Bucky, Jenny, Deadeye or Willy, since she's already met Fox, Falco, Peppy and Slippy.