Pet Shop of Wonders
Pet Shop of Wonders
If there was one thing about Fluttershy that would never change, it was her love of animals. While Starlight Glimmer fully expected that from the Lego World’s Fluttershy, what did surprise her was the kind of animals that were cared for in this world. In hindsight, it probably shouldn’t have been so surprising that, like the people, the animals were also made of Lego parts, but it was still rather weird to see creatures she was familiar with look so different from what she was used to.
For Starlight, the strange sights started practically right at the moment she stepped into the pet shop where Fluttershy worked. While Fluttershy walked ahead and tended to the various animals in the separate but open pens, Starlight just stood still and stared all around. At first, all she could really identify about any of these Lego animals was that they were various lumps of plastic with faces printed on them. It took a little time for her to eventually be able to notice the slight differences between cats and dogs, rats and rabbits, birds and bats.
“Aren’t they just adorable?” asked Fluttershy sweetly as she knelt down and gently picked up a white rabbit.
“Uh, sure…” replied Starlight, struggling to not sound awkward. “…for someone who’s lived their whole life in this world, I guess.”
With the rabbit still in her arms, Fluttershy stood up as she turned to Starlight and asked, “Are the animals in your world different from what we have in this world?”
“Uh, yeah, you could definitely say that,” remarked Starlight. “Many pet animals in Equestria are soft, furry, feathery, and cuddly in all kinds of ways. As far as I can see, these animals are just… plastic pieces in various shapes and colors.”
Fluttershy glanced down at the rabbit in her arms and said, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. These critters sure seem cuddly to me.” Rather adorably, she rubbed her cheek against the rabbit in her arms.
“They’re plastic,” Starlight pointed out. “How could anything made of plastic be considered cuddly?”
Confused, Fluttershy stood still and blinked once. But then she smiled and remarked, “Oh, I think I see what you’re struggling to understand. Well, if what Sunset said was true, that didn’t stop you from enjoying some ice cream.” She then walked over to Starlight and handed over the rabbit.
Starlight was initially confused as she held the rabbit, but as that critter began rubbing affectionately against her, she noticed something quite unexpected. She gently petted the rabbit’s back and realized it didn’t feel like she was just rubbing against a plastic surface. Instead, it was as if she was touching a real rabbit as she was familiar with in Equestria.
Starlight smiled, then chuckled and quipped, “I guess my sense of sight has deceived me yet again in the Lego World.”
Fluttershy couldn’t help but giggle in response.
Starlight carried the rabbit back to the pen Fluttershy had retrieved it from and gently set it back down. She then looked around and said, “I can see you’ve got some of the usual pets here. Cats, dogs, birds, rodents… they may look a little weird, but I can still recognize them.” She turned to Fluttershy and asked, “What else have you got?”
“The aquariums are over here,” said Fluttershy as she led Starlight to another side of the building. “It’s remarkable just how many kinds of beautiful sea creatures there are.”
As they soon reached the aquariums, Starlight gazed into some of the many glass tanks filled with water and was amazed by all the different sizes, shapes, and colors of all those fish. There were schools of fish smaller than her hand and brilliantly colorful, there were large grey fish almost the length of her arm, and there were even some starfish in some of the tanks. Even with all of that wide variety, there was always one similarity that she just couldn’t ignore.
Starlight smirked and remarked, “As amazing as this is, I still find it a little weird that these things are made of plastic instead of some other organic material I’m familiar with.”
“It’s been widely said in this world that plastic is the stuff of life,” acknowledged Fluttershy.
As Starlight kept glancing around, her eyes eventually fell on a much more massive glass tank filled with water that stretched from floor to ceiling and was twice as wide. “Uh, what’s with that giant fish tank?” she asked.
“That’s where I keep Bruce,” answered Fluttershy. “He’s been here ever since I found him washed up on the shore as a pup.”
Starlight walked over to the tank and looked closely through the glass. It wasn’t long before she managed to see a single much larger fish swimming slowly around the tank. This much larger fish was dark grey and had a separate head piece that was attached to the body by a hinge that, when opened, revealed a jagged mouth as if it had rows of sharp teeth. Starlight immediately stepped back in shock and asked, “Is that a shark?!”
“Yes,” confirmed Fluttershy with a nod. “The only reason he’s been here a while is because I could never find a good enough home for him.”
“Haven’t you ever considered, I don’t know, releasing him into the wild?” asked Starlight as if the answer should’ve been very obvious.
“I probably should have back when he was smaller,” admitted Fluttershy, “but I just got too attached to him. Even if I wanted to today, it’s just too difficult to send him hundreds of miles to the nearest coast.” She then smiled. “And besides, after spending much of his life with me, I’m sure he’s now become too tame to last long in the wild anyway.”
Starlight smiled and shook her head as she sighed and remarked, “If there’s anyone in the world for such a creature to get too attached to, it might as well be you, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy giggled shamelessly. She then turned away and began walking as she said, “Let me show you some more creatures I keep here.”
Starlight followed Fluttershy around some more sections of the building. One area was home to spiders and scorpions, while another area held snakes and lizards. The final part of the shop they arrived at was what appeared to be a very large cage, which had dirt on the floor with a water trough and a currently empty food tray at one side, but also appeared to be completely empty.
“What’s this for?” asked Starlight as she gestured at the massive cage. “I don’t see anything here.”
Fluttershy was about to answer when she suddenly heard a faint ping come from her pocket. She pulled out her phone, read the new message on it, then smiled. She put away her phone as she turned to Starlight and replied, “Lucky for you, it looks like you’re about to meet him. I just got a confirmation text, so he’s waiting in the back lot right now.”
Starlight was a little confused, but chose to not ask any questions until after she had seen what this new arrival might be. She followed Fluttershy outside to the lot behind the building, where a delivery truck had just finished unloading some kind of large caged creature.
As soon as the two girls approached, the truck driver immediately walked over to Fluttershy and held out a pen and a clipboard as he stated, “Sign here, please.”
Fluttershy took the pen and signed her name on the clipboard, then handed the pen back to the driver.
The truck driver let out a sigh of relief as he put away the two items and remarked, “Whatever this thing does next, it’s entirely on your shoulders, because now I’m officially no longer responsible for any harm it might cause.” He then quickly hopped into the truck’s cab and drove off with so much urgency that he actually spun the tires a little as it pulled away.
As soon as the delivery truck left the lot, the large cage suddenly rattled as the creature inside snarled and roared aggressively. Starlight immediately gasped and took a few steps back before she hesitantly asked, “W-what the heck is that?”
Fluttershy seemed astonishingly unfazed as she calmly stepped towards the cage and answered, “It’s a velociraptor from Dinosaur Island.” The creature inside the cage snarled aggressively again, but Fluttershy held her hands out as she shushed the raptor and quietly said, “Easy there, Beta. You remember me, don’t you?”
The raptor inside the cage growled threateningly, but made no other aggressive moves. Now that Fluttershy had calmed it down a little, Starlight was able to get a better look at this strange creature. The best Starlight could describe it would be something that resembled a teenage dragon, except with no wings or fins, and its arms were much smaller. She was definitely unfamiliar with such a creature, so she made sure to keep her distance from it, while Fluttershy continued with her attempts to calm it down.
In fact, Starlight had to admit it was quite surprising to see Fluttershy behaving so bravely around such a seemingly vicious creature. “You’re familiar with that thing?” asked Starlight.
“I actually befriended his pack when my friends and I once visited Dinosaur Island,” replied Fluttershy. “I made an arrangement with the rangers who work there to let me borrow him for a few months.”
The raptor rattled the cage again and roared, prompting Fluttershy to immediately turn her attention back to the aggressive dinosaur and try to calm him down again. She shushed the raptor and quietly spoke, “Calm down, Beta. I’ll let you out soon enough. Just please be patient so I can take you to your new home, okay?”
The raptor growled lowly, but made no other aggressive moves.
Fluttershy kept her eyes on the caged raptor as she walked over to a small forklift nearby. As she climbed into the forklift, she spoke up, “Starlight, could you please do me a favor? I would like you to go into the kitchen and grab some sausages from the fridge. Raptors really like sausages.”
“Sure, no problem,” responded Starlight with a smile before she turned away and walked back inside the building.
Meanwhile, Fluttershy started up the forklift and began slowly driving it towards the caged raptor.
Just a few seconds later, Starlight suddenly came back outside and asked, “By the way, I just have one question. What are sausages?”
Fluttershy stopped the forklift and stared at Starlight. Fluttershy was briefly confused, but it wasn’t long before she realized the likely reason behind such a question. “Oh, right, pony from Equestria,” she muttered under her breath. She then spoke up, “What you’re looking for should be food items that are long, red, and slightly curved.” She gestured with her hands to give a rough idea of the shape and size of the item she had requested.
“Got it,” acknowledged Starlight with a smile before she ran back inside the building.
Fluttershy resumed driving the forklift towards the caged raptor. She had just gotten the prongs underneath the cage when Starlight suddenly rushed back outside again.
“Uh, I got another question,” said Starlight hesitantly. “What is this ‘fridge’ that’s supposed to have the sausages I’m looking for?”
Fluttershy turned to Starlight and asked in astonishment, “You don’t have any refrigerators in Equestria? How do you preserve perishable foods if you can’t keep them cold?”
“Well, some kitchens do have an icebox that can do that,” Starlight pointed out.
Fluttershy was unable to hold back a sigh before she explained, “Then what you’re looking for should resemble an icebox. The lower door is the fridge and the upper door is the freezer, and you’ll find the sausages in the fridge portion.”
“Okay, I think I’ve got it all down this time,” said Starlight before she turned away and quickly headed back inside the building again.
The raptor roared and rattled the cage again, prompting Fluttershy to calm him down and softly respond, “I’m sorry about that. She’s still getting used to a lot of things around here. Don’t worry, you’ll get your lunch soon enough.”
Finally, Fluttershy used the forklift to lift the cage off the ground, then turned the small vehicle around and drove through the garage door she had left opened. After some careful maneuvering between some storage crates, she soon reached the empty large enclosure that would hold the raptor. There was a gap in the surrounding bars of the enclosure that was just barely wide enough for the cage to slip through, so she set the caged raptor down right there. She then pulled the forklift away and flipped a couple of locks to ensure the cage stayed firmly in that gap.
By the time Fluttershy was ready to enter the enclosure, Starlight finally returned, now carrying a plate with a large pile of sausages on it. “I wasn’t sure how many you wanted, so I just took them all,” explained Starlight.
“That’s okay,” assured Fluttershy as she took the plate of sausages from Starlight. “I can just put any leftovers back in the fridge.” Carrying the plate in one hand, she unlocked the door into the enclosure, stepped inside, and then closed and relocked the door behind her. She set down the plate on the empty tray beside the water trough, then walked over to the cage and unlocked the door on it.
As soon as the cage was opened, the raptor rushed out and ran almost all the way to the other side of the enclosure, then stopped and turned around to face Fluttershy. She made sure to maintain eye contact with the raptor at all times as she reached over towards the plate, picked up one of the sausages, and held it out towards the raptor. The raptor took slow and steady steps forward as it curiously eyed the food item in her hand. Once the raptor got close enough, Fluttershy tossed the sausage towards him. The raptor swiftly caught the sausage in his mouth and quickly gulped in down in one bite.
“You just keep on surprising me,” remarked Starlight as she watched Fluttershy prepare to feed another sausage to the raptor. “I honestly can’t see my world’s Fluttershy doing something this crazy and dangerous. She’s scared stiff of dragons.”
“Sunset once told me that Equestria doesn’t have any dinosaurs,” noted Fluttershy as she tossed another sausage at the raptor. “I have always found these types of creatures to be so fascinating, so I guess that might explain why I had an easier time getting over my fear of large carnivores.”
“Are you sure this guy is gonna be okay in here?” asked Starlight. “It looks a little… restrictive.”
As Fluttershy grabbed another sausage, she sighed and replied, “It was the best I was allowed to have, as part of the agreement to bring Beta here.”
“So why did you think it would be such a good idea to bring one of these dinosaurs into your shop in the middle of a city?” asked Starlight skeptically as she watched Fluttershy toss another sausage towards the raptor.
“I wanted to raise awareness,” explained Fluttershy. “Dinosaur Island and other Adventure Regions inhabited by dinosaurs haven’t been getting as much official funding as they once did, so my hope here is that by showing people that these majestic creatures really do exist and are in need of help, I might be able to encourage people to donate to preserve their habitats.”
“Can’t argue with a noble cause like that,” remarked Starlight with a smile. She then frowned and added, “Though I’d still like to know if you’re sure this guy’s gonna be okay staying here for a while.”
Fluttershy tossed another sausage at the raptor before she explained, “Right from the moment I got official approval, I knew these were going to be some rough conditions, and I definitely didn’t want to force this on any creature against their will, so I traveled to Dinosaur Island a couple weeks ago to see if I could find one who would be okay with enduring this effort. Beta was the only raptor who was willing to volunteer.”
“Why was he so eager to help out?” asked Starlight.
“He says it’s because he believes he owes me a favor,” explained Fluttershy. “The last time we had met was when my friends and I first visited that region. It was a little more difficult for me to communicate with animals back then, but I was able to befriend his pack and even convinced them to fight on our side against the Shadowbolts we were chasing after on that day. To help us out, I even taught them how to ride motorcycles.”
That final fact left Starlight momentarily speechless. After silently staring at Fluttershy, she eventually shook her head and mumbled, “Is there no one in this world who hasn’t done something impossible?”
Fluttershy simply shrugged and remarked, “Just doing what I do best.” She then tossed another sausage towards the raptor.
As she watched Fluttershy continue feeding that raptor, Starlight thought about how she had seemingly encountered yet more examples of just how bizarrely different the Lego World was from Equestria. Despite just about everything from people to animals to even food being made of plastic, all aspects of this world seemed to function almost exactly like the lifeforms she was more familiar with back home. Not only that, it seemed that not even the most ridiculous or outlandish of ideas could be considered impossible in this world. As much as she was fascinated with the Lego World, she just couldn’t see herself staying here for an extended period of time, and she was completely okay with that.
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You went flying on a giant kite in the last installment, and you are just barely figuring this part out.
Then again, raptors on motorcycles really is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. 
You got inspiration from that Jurassic World parody for the raptor riding the motorcycle, didn't you? XD
This was pretty fun. I quite like the LEGO Jurassic World references with the raptor here
This scene makes me remember in Lego Jurassic World where they did that scene where they were gonna feed the Raptor's a cow, but the cow got free and someone swapped places with the guy who was controlling the crane.
I'm surprised Starlight didn't freak out finding out the Raptor's a carnivore. That would lead her to putting the pieces of what the sausages are.
9149930 As I had said back when I first mentioned the reference in the third story, I never actually saw that video, but I did see some comments referring to it at around the time the Lego Jurassic World video game came out, and it seemed so absurdly fitting for a Lego setting that I just had to use it.
9154997
I actually think the game developers put it in there as a reference to the video.