The Fluttershy of Tomorrow

by Amneiger

Iron

“They looked like what again?” Twilight asked.

There were three of them: Fluttershy, Twilight, and Rainbow Dash, walking through the deeper parts of Whitetail Wood. All of the rest of Fluttershy’s friends had been out of Ponyville. Fluttershy wished they had been around; she had woken up this morning to what had seemed like every animal in the Whitetail Wood lined up outside her house, all trying to tell her what they had seen, and from what they had said Fluttershy would have felt safer with more ponies with her.

“They were walking on two arms and two legs, like a really tall and thin Diamond Dog made of metal. They’re twice as tall as a pony. They didn’t have heads, just some kind of electrical stick that looked kind of like a spear. None of the animals knew what it was. They had these lamps in their hands, and they were shining them everywhere. They had this kind of metal screen on their chests, like armor.”

“Spears? Armor? That doesn’t sound good,” Twilight said. “Maybe we should get some more ponies before we go further.”

“Eh, how bad could it be?” Rainbow Dash asked. She was floating about above their heads, occasionally drifting in front of them. “If they want to fight us, we’ll figure something out. Like the changelings.”

“Rainbow, we weren’t the ones who defeated the changelings,” Twilight said. “Shining Armor and Cadence did.”

“We fought a bunch of them, right? Same difference.” Rainbow Dash waved a hoof dismissively as the ponies entered a small clear space in the middle of Whitetail Wood. The trees loomed overhead, growing in a thick circle around them.

A bird flittered down next to Fluttershy, and she bent down to hear what it had to say. Twilight and Rainbow stopped to wait.

Fluttershy listened carefully as the bird chirped. “You saw…” She gasped. “They’re almost here! That way,” she said, pointing with a hoof. She quickly bent back down towards the bird. “Thank you for telling us. You’re very brave.” Fluttershy made a mental note to get some extra birdseed when she got back to show her appreciation.

The bird chirped its thanks and flew off. Rainbow and Twilight had already turned to face the direction Fluttershy had pointed in. “Now remember, it’s possible that we can talk to them, but I want us all to be prepared just in case,” said Twilight. “Rainbow, stay up in the air and keep an eye out for any weather that you can control. Fluttershy, stay near the trees in case you need to take cover. If worst comes to worst, get back to Ponyville and tell Spike to write a letter to the Princesses.”

“Right!” said Rainbow, and she flew a few feet into the air and began looking upwards.

“Okay,” Fluttershy said. She took a few steps back, until her back was to one of the thicker trees nearby. She looked up into the sky in the same direction as Rainbow. The sky looked very clear today, bright blue with few clouds.

Fluttershy realized that she couldn’t hear any animals around her. Had they all fled? She stepped back, around the tree she had been up against.

There was something moving up ahead. It took Fluttershy a moment to realize that it was some sort of light, sweeping back and forth between the trees.

A tall metal creature, just like what the animals had said, stepped out from between the trees. The metal the creature was made from was a black iron. Fluttershy realized that impossibly, it didn’t seem to actually have a head; just some sort of stick with two metal prongs mounted on a swivel, with sparks dimly leaping back and forth between the prongs. Thick, dirty electrical cables led from the weapon to something on the back of the creature. The lamp in its hands was the size and shape of a head, connected to its torso by a black segmented cable. There was a click, and the lamp switched on, a harsh, industrial yellow light. It swept the light across the ponies in a slow, deliberate arc, like a spotlight searching for a target.

“H-hello?” Twilight said hesitantly. She was tilting her head back to try to look at the place where the creature’s head should have been. “Can you understand me?”

The creature said nothing. It only kept passing its light back and forth across them. Fluttershy didn’t like the way that it seemed to be scrutinizing them, searching for some sort of identifying mark or signal.

“Hello?” Twilight said again, sounding a more disquieted this time.

There was more rustling off to the sides. Two more of the creatures had just come through the trees, one of the left and one to the right. Both of them switched on their own lamps and began sweeping the light across the ponies, just like the one in front of them.

Twilight took a step backwards, glancing back and forth, trying to keep all of the creatures in view. Rainbow looked like she was wound up like a spring, trying to figure out what to do with these strange things that were just looking at them so silently and creepily. Fluttershy felt surrounded, under a microscope.

There was a crackling noise from one of the creatures. The three electrified prongs on top of the creatures began to glow, the sparks suddenly forming into a thick mass of energy.

There was suddenly a light shining behind Fluttershy. Something hard and cold grabbed her and pulled her away just as the creatures fired.

Twilight’s forcefield spell went up in a purple flash, covering herself, Rainbow, and the spot where Fluttershy had just been standing. The three lightning bolts smashed into the shield, leaving cracks all across the surface of it. Fluttershy screamed, and she saw Rainbow and Twilight starting to turn their heads towards her just as she was pulled behind a tree.

Fluttershy twisted about, trying to see what had her, but she couldn’t turn all the way. It took her a moment to realize that she was being held by a hand made of metal. A fourth one of the creatures was trying to carry her away! Fluttershy heard the electrical crackle of the lightning weapons firing again back in the clearing.

“Fluttershy!” Rainbow came whipping around the tree; Twilight must have lowered her shield long enough for Rainbow to get out. “Let go of her, you – ”

The creature that was holding Fluttershy spun about and fired point blank into Rainbow Dash.

The lightning bolt threw Rainbow back into the nearest tree. Lightning surged across her body and she convulsed, her eyes rolling back in her head, before she hit the ground like a stone.

Rainbow didn’t move.

“Rainbow!” Fluttershy screamed. “Rainbow!”

“Fluttershy!” Twilight was shouting from somewhere inside the clearing. The creature was starting to pull Fluttershy away, which made it harder for her to hear Twilight.

“Twilight! Rainbow’s hurt! Help, please!” Fluttershy flapped her wings and legs, trying to get free. She felt herself being lifted further into the air, and she realized that the creature that was holding her was straightening its arms to hold her further away from itself.

There was a pop, and Twilight appeared a few feet in front of Fluttershy. Twilight glanced around. “What is – ” Her horn flared.

The creature holding Fluttershy fired just as Twilight got her shield up over herself and Rainbow. The lightning bolt slammed into it, putting more cracks all across the front of it. Twilight’s horn glowed again, and the cracks gleamed and faded.

The three other creatures came around the trees. Their lamps swept over Twilight and Rainbow, and they focused on the fallen pegasus and the unicorn.

Twilight began pouring more power into the shield just as the first creature fired. The shot hit the shield, fracturing it again. Just as the new damage was about to fade the second one fired, hitting it from a different angle. They were firing in turn, not giving Twilight a chance to do anything but focus on her shield.

Fluttershy was being taken further away. Already Rainbow and Twilight seemed to be pulling away into the distance. She couldn’t twist out of the thing’s grip; its fingers were locked too strongly around her neck. Frantic, she reached up with her front hooves to its fingers, instinctively trying to pull them away.

The moment her hooves touched the fingers, the creature dropped her. Fluttershy hit the ground in a heap. She got her hooves under her, stood back up, and looked over her shoulder.

The creature looked absolutely huge from this close, as if she was standing at the base of a tower. It was shaking its hand as if trying to wring stiffness out of it, and Fluttershy saw that the movement of the fingers actually did look a bit stiffer than they had before. Its lamp gave another high-pitched burst of crackling. One of the other creatures that was around Twilight turned, shining its lamp over Fluttershy, and then rushed over, its long legs stiff out in front of it.

Fluttershy squeaked and turned to run, just as the creature behind her reached out and grabbed her by her tail. It dragged her back just as the second creature arrived and picked her up by her right front hoof. The two of them lifted Fluttershy between them and started to run, carrying her away deeper into the woods.

“No!” Fluttershy heard Twilight scream from somewhere behind her, and with a pop Twilight was suddenly standing directly in the path of the two creatures. Rainbow’s body was on Twilight’s back. “Stop!”

The creatures sped up, and Fluttershy saw Twilight’s eyes widen as she realized that they were going to run her down.

Twilight teleported to the side just as the creatures ran through the spot she had just been standing. She aimed her horn at one of the creatures carrying Fluttershy, but stopped and cast another forcefield when she heard rustling in the trees in the direction she’d just come from. Two lightning bolts came flying out of the trees to impact the forcefield, just as Fluttershy was taken away behind another clump of trees.

Fluttershy was in shock. She didn’t know what these creatures were or what was going on, and things were happening so fast that her brain felt as if it was spinning in her skull. But in the midst of the chaos she touched one idea that she clung to as soon as she realized what it was: she had to do something.

Fluttershy’s left front hoof was still free. The creatures were using one hand each to carry her; the other hand was holding the lamps. The one holding her right front hoof had its lamp aimed over her, pointing at the path it was taking. Fluttershy stretched out and grabbed the arm holding her, thinking desperately that maybe she could get the creature to drop her.

As soon as her hooves gripped the creature’s arm, she realized that something was wrong. The hard metal under her hooves was cold for only a moment before the spot she was touching was suddenly red hot, change temperature impossibly fast. Sparks of lightning leapt down its arm, and Fluttershy pulled her hoof away just as the creature’s whole upper arm began to glow and smoke.

The creature’s arm came off, leaving long strings of molten metal like wet taffy. The hand around her foreleg relaxed its grip on her and fell off. The creature in front of her staggered backwards as liquid copper dripped from its shoulder like blood. Its lamp was spitting off ear-splitting screeches of alarm. One of the creatures pinning down Twilight turned towards it just as the creature that had Fluttershy by the tail pulled hard. Fluttershy wailed as she was dragged roughly along the ground.

“Fluttershy!” Twilight shouted. “Try to fly!”

Fluttershy didn’t think that she’d be able to break free of the grip the creature had on her, but she flapped her wings anyway, lifting herself off the ground. The creature pulled, but she flapped as hard as she could, pulling back. The ground below her seemed to be moving more slowly, and Fluttershy realized that she was actually being pulled more slowly than she had been when she was being dragged. It was working!

There was a loud crack of thunder behind her; she winced, then she turned to look.

A circle lined with surges of electricity had suddenly opened in the air. She couldn’t see much of what was through it with the creature directly between her and it, but she could see orange and gray; definitely somewhere that wasn’t the Whitetail Wood. The creature was pulling her directly towards it. Fluttershy squeaked and flapped harder, fear driving her wings faster as she tried to get as much distance as possible between herself and the place the creature was trying to take her.

Then one of the creatures that had been attacking Twilight grabbed Fluttershy’s right wing.

Fluttershy’s balance spiraled away from her, and she dropped like so much dead weight between the two creatures. She flailed desperately, and the grip on her wings slipped. Fluttershy’s waving legs pushed directly into the creature’s chest.

The hard metal changed. Her hooves sank into the metal as if it was suddenly soft and yielding, like pudding.

The creature convulsed, and suddenly there was the smell of blood all around her, thick and coppery enough to taste on her tongue. It staggered backwards, pulling itself away from Fluttershy, and her hooves fell away from its chest. Her hooves had – impossibly – pushed through the wrought iron as if it was soft cheese, revealing metal gears and wires deep inside the creature’s chest.

As Fluttershy watched, blood began to seep out between the gears, from some spot deep in its body. The color and shape of the gears was beginning to change, and it took Fluttershy a moment to realize that its insides were turning into kidneys and lungs and hearts, all punctured and crushed as if something had opened the creature and taken a hammer to its insides. The creature took two unsteady steps forward, letting go of Fluttershy to bring its hands and its lamp back in front of it, pointed at her.

What was…what was this?

The creature took another stumbling step forward. Blood was now running freely down its front, turning its body red. Fluttershy could only stare in shock and horror as the creature started to bleed and die right in front of her.

She almost didn’t realize that she was at the portal until she was pulled through it, and Equestria fell away.

Comments

[Olivine Ellva]

This looks interesting... Can't say I'm familiar with what it's crossed over with though.

[Amneiger]

1568125
It's okay, Fluttershy isn't familiar with it either. =D

Also: thanks to everyone who's read this (and favorited and commented on it) so far! Your approval fills me with joy. =D

[Hydrawolf]

1568125

Genius: the transgression is a fan-made expansion for the horror role-playing game World of Darkness. Genius is about mad science, and WoD is placed in an alternate earth where the darker side of the supernatural is real.

Also this is a very interesting idea. I have played genius and want to see how you have fluttershy react to the universe of a horror game

Edit: fluttershy has havoc-inducing hooves?

[Amneiger]

1606081

On the hooves: That depends. What causes Havoc?

((I'm actually trying to give out information in a controlled fashion instead of infodumping the Genius rules all at once, which is why you got a question instead of an answer. ))

Oh, and thanks for the fav!

[Karna]

...How is Fluttershy causing Havoc? I thought only pure humans without any supernatural template could do that.