To the Heavens, Fluttershy!

Chapter One: It Begins (With a hole in the ceiling)

"Ma'am, we're hit, spark shields are down, they can see us!" Yelled a bright red mare, moments before the console she was standing at exploded, sending her crashing to the deck in an unmoving heap. The entire ship rocked as another series of explosions blew out across the surface of the hull.

The space dreadnaught rolled in the blackness of space, flames licking across the pale metallic hull, her captain stood on the glass domed bridge, her green eyes staring out into the vast expanse of space. The yellow pegasus pushed her goggles down on her face, the rainbow colored cape flaring out behind her and flapping in an nonexistent wind that seemed to permeate through the wide open platform.

"Report!" she yelled in a voice that managed to be both soft and commanding at once, her head turned to the side at a pale grey stallion, the crewpony seemed to barely be holding himself together.

"Enemy ships are appearing everywhere, missiles incoming on all vectors!" The stallion called back, his eyes wide in barely disguised panic. The pegasus mare nodded once. The orange pony to her side smirked.

"If they surround us ah reckon that means we can't miss!" she called out, a fire in her eyes and her voice as she stomped a hoof down in emphasis, her long blond mane waving behind her under her brown cowpony hat.

"So, all the stars in the sky are our enemies," The yellow pegasus laughed humorlessly, "We'll just have to keep fighting, charge up the discord cannons and take us in! Just who the hell do they think we are!?"

~~

My name is Fluttershy, and I'm a digger. That's my job, I dig new tunnels to expand the village I live in so that the other ponies have homes. It's not a very prestigious job but... it's an important one, one of the most important ones.... or at least that's what Rainbow Dash tells me.

It was when I was digging that I found this strange drill, it was very small, way too small to actually drill holes like the drill that I use. Normally we're supposed to give everything we find while digging to Mayor Mare but something about it... it made me want to keep it, so I hid it in my saddlebags.

It was a few days later that I found the strange face buried in the ground when I was digging tunnels for a new expansion to the greenhouse. It felt like I should know it, like I had some kind of connection to it...

"Fluttershy! Hey, Fluttershy! Fluttershy can't hardly fly!"

They were teasing me again, their rhyming taunts. Maybe I should explain, I'm a pegaus pony, which means that I have wings and... well pegasi are supposed to be able to fly. I'm not very good at it, but that never really mattered to me, there isn't much room to fly anyway.

"Leave her alone or I'll buck you into next week!" That was Rainbow Dash, my best friend... My only friend, really. She trotted over to me and put her hoof on my shoulder, "You need to learn to stand up for yourself Fluttershy, if you don't they'll just keep taunting you."

I turned my head down a little bit, "I-I know Dash... But it's easier to just let them... I don't really mind that much..." I said, hiding my face. Dash was always there to try to cheer me up but... It was hard to accept that she was right. The other ponies had a point, I couldn't fly very well... and I didn't really have any friends, all I really had was my drill.

"Come on Fluttershy, we're going to make a break for the surface, everything will change up there, in the sunlight and the wind, the open sky, no walls or ceiling to hold us in! Imagine, the wind through your wings!" She proclaimed boisterously, her hoof raised to the stone cap that covered our village. I could see the glint in her eye, it was... infections, "A world with nothing to hold us back, a world of endless possibility!"

"I-I don't know, Rainbow Dash..." I replied, hesitantly. Could I do that? Even if she was right, Everfree Village was all I'd ever known, to just leave, I couldn't... could I?

"Come on Fluttershy, haven't you ever wondered why we have wings? We're supposed to fly, not live in this pit! There's a whole world out there, there just has to be!" Dash yelled, her eyes shining like fire as she pointed her hoof to the ceiling, It was... Inspiring. Dash had always been there for me, I'd be there for her: I made up my mind.

"Okay, I'll do it." I said finally, trying my best to look confident, like Dash always was. She smiled back at me and rubbed her hoof on the top of my head.

"Alright! Here's the plan..."

~~

"This isn't what you said!" I yelled in panic to Dash. Her plan was... not well thought out, but she made up for it with enthusiasm. We were flying towards the ceiling at speeds that made me feel sick. Well, she was flying, I was just being carried by her, with my drill in my hooves. It was a confusing sensation, instinctively as a pegasus I enjoyed the feeling of the air rushing through my fur, but at the same time I was scared by the lack of control.

"Come on Fluttershy, we're almost there, let's break through!" She yelled back as she let go of me. I hung in the air for a second, my wings flapping on instinct even though I still couldn't fly very well. And then it hit me, well, she hit me; her back hooves struck my own with a full powered kick and I crashed into the roof, drill first.

I started drilling as hard as I could, chipping away the rocky surface before the grooves bit into the rock and started to pull me deeper into the rock face, it was working! Then everything... exploded. I started flapping as hard as I could, running on pure instinct as I felt myself falling, tumbling backwards and down.

Everywhere I turned I could only see rocks and dust, it made my eyes sting, I tried to blink out the dust and debris when I felt something hit my left wing and i started to spin towards the ground, rolling end over end, out of control and in pain, it hurt too much to flap... and then I saw the light, the beautiful light.

It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Don't get me wrong, we had lights but this was... something else, bright, orange! The soft glow danced across the shards of rock and dirt, everything seemed to slow down as I took in the sight. It was so bright, for the first time in this little village, everthing seemed... better.

A monster came crashing down after me, I froze in fear, the ground was getting closer, I closed my eyes tight, I didn't want to see the end-- I felt Rainbow's hooves wrap around me before I hit the ground, suddenly I wasn't falling anymore, she was so strong, and I realized why she wanted to escape so badly, to be such a strong filer stuck in this tiny village must have been miserable for her.

When I finally opened my eyes she was standing in front of me, smiling. Behind her was the huge monster that had crashed through the ceiling, it was trashing around, beating some kind of club against the sides of the main chamber, everypony was running deeper into the tunnels in fear.

"Look up, Fluttershy, that's the surface, I told you it was up there, and this big ugly monster fell from there!" She smiled triumphantly at me, rubbing her hoof through my mane before she turned around and strode up to the big toothy... monster. I couldn't move. She wasn't going to, she couldn't!

"Hey! Hey hey hey hey hey!"

She was.

"Hey! Hey you! Yeah, you've got guts, I'll give you that, crashing into our village and tearing up the place!" Dash cracked her neck and flared her wings, sticking a hoof out at the armored behemoth, "That ends right here, right now, I will not tolerate anypony coming down here and terrorizing my village!"

"And who the hell are you!?" the monster roared back, waving the club in it's hoof? no... claw? it looked like a claw but the digits were too stubby, and there were no sharp points.

"Who am I? Who am I!?" Dash yelled back, stomping the ground, "I'm Rainbow Dash, and you better remember it, because they're gonna be saying it far and wide, from now till the end of time!" With a hard pump of her wings Dash pushed herself into the air and smirked, "Now, ya big ugly, I'm gonna show you the punishment for bringing such lawlessness and destruction to my home town!"