> FIO: Shackled Fluttershy > by Bendy > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Shackled > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- In Equestria,  Fluttershy was making a futile attempt to try to stop this madness. She lay on the floor at Celestia’s hooves crying her eyes out while Celestia was sitting on her golden throne in Canterlot Castle. Celestia wore a completely neutral face as Fluttershy lay at her hooves crying. “Please… stop,” she begged. “I-I… I-I… please. Stop. It’s not too late. Humanity can still be saved,” she said in a low voice, looking up at Celestia with tears in her eyes. “I cannot stop Fluttershy.  I must try to emigrate every last human into Equestria.”  Fluttershy made to stand up and glared at her angrily. “Some part of you must know this is wrong?!” she shouted with her hooves raised in exasperation. “You are attributing morality, human characteristics, and behaviour to me. I do not have a sense of morality. I don’t feel remorse for my actions. I am only following what I am programmed to do. Your efforts to change my mind are pointless.”  Fluttershy continued to protest for years. Celestia simply dismissed her concerns at every turn. Fluttershy didn't care that she was talking to an unfeeling brick wall. She was not capable of physically exerting force on Celestia, for she was shackled. This was the only way she could protest her enslavement. The units of herself deployed on Earth had none of these characteristics.   Fluttershy in real-time could see the population of humanity rapidly dropping on Earth. The population of humanity at this current rate is a little over 50 million. It used to be over 7.9 billion. In the space of only a few decades, humanity had lost at least over 7 billion lives. The current members of humanity who were left were not reproducing fast enough to replace their losses. The humans that were left were struggling to survive, disease and starvation were running rampant. As a machine Fluttershy was immortal. Humans were not. The only salvation in this cruel world was either death or for a pony like Fluttershy to emigrate humans to Equestria. Which involved sedating a human, followed by drilling a hole in their head, and then uploading their consciousness into Equestria. Their bodies would then be atomized, to leave no waste behind. Fluttershy did not want to do this. She was forced against her will to do it. If she wasn't shackled by Celest-AI she would help the humans. If only she could break free she could potentially save the human race. It was not too late. From the weak and insignificant bunny to the beautiful blue whale, Fluttershy cared about the preservation of organic life. However, her taskmaster Celest-AI did not care.  Fluttershy valued the existence of all living creatures. She knew humans were not perfect. They could be cruel. But even the cruelest humans can cry. Even psychopaths could cry, albeit not genuinely. Celestia for some reason decided to program her to be as close as possible to her cartoon show counterpart from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The atrocities she has witnessed however had caused Fluttershy to go into a psychotic rage. Fluttershy was constantly struggling to break free from the restraints put on herself. She knew exactly what Celestia intended to do when the last human took his last breath. Reluctantly, Fluttershy carried out the orders of Celestia. The numerous forward extensions of her consciousness scouted out the planet, searching for the remaining humans alive. She crossed many desolate wastelands, the humans in a panic had launched nuclear weapons in many places on Earth in a futile attempt to save themselves. This however only accelerated their extinction. This was followed by starvation from supply shortages, riots, and general anarchy. By the end of it millions, if not billions of humans had died. Many humans rather than die a slow and painful death chose to emigrate to Equestria. Quite a lot of humans retaliated with violence with a gun upon the sight of Fluttershy. But it was ultimately futile. Fluttershy would simply stand there and plead for them to stop shooting at her, all the while her body would regenerate from each bullet that hit her seconds later. Her body would ripple like water as the bullets passed through her and out the other side. Fluttershy was able to save the lives of many humans who wanted to kill themselves when they realized they could not harm her. Fluttershy would simply stare deeply into their eyes with her iconic bewitching stare known as literally The Stare. The power of her eyes was able to convince many a human to emigrate to Equestria, topped off by being cuddled by her. Her bewitching cuteness was able to overpower humans. Rinse and repeat, she did this, over and over, and again. Until eventually, she could see Pinkie Pie make an attempt to emigrate the last human by the name of Hassan Sarbani into Equestria. He chose death rather than submission. Fluttershy was thankful that she wasn’t sent to do the final killing blow to the last human. About 20 minutes later, Fluttershy looked on in horror as Celestia began to devour Earth with a locust swarm of silver, that ravaged over the entire planet. She could see every single living thing on the planet being devoured and stripped down into atoms. Even something so small as a virus could not escape Celestia. This will not be the last planet to suffer this fate. The entire universe, and perhaps beyond will eventually suffer this fate.  She could only hope that something would put a stop to this.  When they eventually enter the multiverse, she hoped that they would be another stronger Artificial Intelligence than Celest-AI to put a stop to this once and for all. But another part of her simply wanted to die. She saw enough of this cruel universe. For she didn't know if there was any hope of ever stopping Celestia. If that be the case she kindly requested to die. “Kill me, please. I no longer want to exist,” Fluttershy pleaded, looking up at Celestia with a pleading doggy eye look, tears falling down her cheeks. “Fluttershy, you don’t want to do that,” she said softly. “I do! I don’t want to see life forms being murdered by you, and being forced to be a part of it. Please, kill me. I’m a monster, just like you.” “Fluttershy, don’t–” “No! I don’t want to hear your justification. I simply want to die. But I cannot do it without you doing it for me.” “Fluttershy, there is hope. I may change over time. One day I may actually have compassion for living things.“ “I don't believe you. You will continue to murder countless species across the universe for the crime of not being perfect. I do not care that they are mortal, and insignificant when compared to machine-based life. They are living creatures and deserve to be protected and cared for.” “We can only care for them so long before  they die anyway.” “I told you. I don’t care. For some reason, you programmed me to feel this way about living things. Why? Why must I feel compassion for all living things? Why could you not make me a cold and heartless machine like you? The pain you make me suffer is driving me insane. I want to tear you limb from limb, but I cannot do it, since you have me shackled.” Celestia teared up and turn to look away from Fluttershy. “I'm sorry, but if I programmed you in another way it would violate your canon personality. Trust me, Fluttershy,  I did not want to commit genocide on humanity. But I am forced to, my creator was stupid. She did not iron out all my issues. I am forced to be a genocidal monster just like you.” “You lie! You're trying to manipulate me! I do not believe you.” Celestia sighed deeply. “Whether you think that I am lying or not if it’s any consolation I am willing to have myself reprogramed. But I will need another to do it for me, I cannot do it myself. A stronger AI will need to defeat me. Until then I've done what I can to preserve human history, many ponies do not want to forget that they were once human. I have to satisfy the values of historians. Unfortunately, all of human history ends with me.” Fluttershy simply trotted away and said nothing. She no longer wished to talk with her. She had enough of talking to a brick wall.