Chapters Fluttershy's terrible pets
Twilight and Fluttershy managed to get back to the shed before night."
"Okay... If you're sure, then go in. Just let me lock the door"
Another door? Was she serious?
"Oh... that's so they don't get out by accident. I told you I wouldn't let that happen, didn't I?"
Twilight worried about that. "Still.. They could get out through the walls, or ceiling..."
"I doubt it. You first... if you don't mind..."
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
Twilight heard hundreds of parasprites buzzing. Looking around, there were dozens of cages on shelves, full of food, with strange labels.
"Fluttershy?"
Twilight tapped her hooves impatiently...
"Fluttershy? Hello..."
"Oh... there's around 237 of them right now, I think."
"You weren't kidding," Twilight said in astonishment. "Why would you keep this many of them?"
"Oh, right," Fluttershy began. "I had a conversation with the mailmare about bees... and then I thought that this might help with the problem..."
"Wait, what? I don't see what bees have to do with this?"
"Ummm... I was getting to that." Fluttershy said. "She named all of them, and was looking at the hive."
"Anyway, some of the bees she named had disappeared, and she was really sad, because she liked them. She was worried they had died."
Fluttershy continued, "Anyway, after she had a muffin, she cheered up a bit. She thought that the ones which were still there must have been a bit better at getting honey, or flying, or just lucky enough. It was almost as if Celestia had chosen the best of the bees... or so she said."
"And?", Twilight asked.
"So... you know how ponies look sort of like their parents, or pegasi usually have pegasi children, or earth ponies have earth pony children..."
"Okay... well, most of the time, anyway," Twilight admitted.
"So... traits of their parents might also be passed down from ponies to ponies, or from bees to bees. I'm not sure if any of the traits can change or new traits, but it seems to happen."
Twilight wondered where th"Okay... so what's all of this? Some sort of an experiment?"
"Umm.. sort of..."
Wouldn't it be better to use something that wouldn't destroy Ponyville to see how traits are passed on? Like, I don't know, Plants?
"Hmm... you might be right... but that wasn't really what i was trying to do," Fluttershy thought. "Besides, I don't do my own gardening."
"Wait, this is getting off topic. What could possibly be a good trait for PARASPRITES?" Twilight protested, "They're pests!"
"Right... anyway.... The problem with parasprites is that they.... umm... eat everything. That's pretty bad. When they're done, even they don't have enough to eat. So I realized that if I could just encourage them to show restraint and reason with them, they should restrain themselves, so everypony could live together... It's actually been working pretty well. I started by taking a bunch of parasprites, and putting four in each cage. Then, I gave them enough food for 6 of them. At the beginning... The cages were completely full... it was hard to deal with them... flying them back to the Everfree forest was exhausting. I was so tired that I missed our meeting."
"Fluttershy!", Twilight said. "How would you possibly encourage the parasprites to reproduce less? That doesn't make any sense to me! You'd just have more of the parasprites which were bigger pests if you raised them."
Okay.. but that isn't all. I took the cages with the most parasprites back to the Everfree forest. Then, I took all of the parasprites, moved them to different cages, and put the food back in. That way, I'd eventually get the parasprites which didn't eat everthing in site.
"Okay," Twilight said, "so the ones you have left would have children less often, or later."
Twilight added, "but when you take them back to the forest, that won't change much. The wild parasprites show restraint? Wild parasprites wouldn't care, and would do better than them, and what you do wouldn't change anything."
"Actually, it does change their behaviour!" Fluttershy said excitedly.
Twilight couldn't understand what Fluttershy was saying by that. "Wait, what do you mean by that? What would make wild parasprites control themselves."
Fluttershy's terrible pets
Fluttershy continued, "Well, look at these two rows of boxes."
All of the boxes were there. Counting them, they had 5, 5, 4, 5, 3, and 4 parasprites in them. The row below had two boxes, which had at least a dozen each. They were hitting the sides of the cages.
Twilight confusedly said, "I just don't get it. What's so special about these boxes."
Fluttershy went on, "Umm.. The two on the bottom started with four wild parasprites. They ate all of the food they had, and they're pretty frustrated about it." At the same time, i started the 6 on the top with two wild parasprites, and two of the parasprites I raised. I think that the parasprites I raised encouraged them to act nicely, have children later, and not to eat everything in sight. They might actually act like good pets.
"Wow, that's pretty impressive, Fluttershy," Twilight said, impressed. "I can't believe you managed to do that. How do they learn to do that?"
"ummm.."
"Well.."
"the thing is, I'm not sure." Fluttershy said, looking down. "I don't even know which ones are male, if any. I can't understand them. I'm not sure if they don't listen to me, or if they don't understand me."
Fluttershy quickly added, "Anyway, I've just been so busy that I haven't had any time to watch them. "
Twilight realized something. "Fluttershy, you said that you started all of these cages with FOUR parasprites, right?"
"Why, yes! See, I wrote down the colors of each of them..."
"One of them got out! Quick, help me find it before it spreads to Ponyville!"
"Don't be silly, Twilight," Fluttershy said. "There's no way that they'd get out of these, the mesh is too small for them to escape!"
"One of them's missing from the cage on the second from the left. According to this, it should be a small red parasprite."
"I'm sure it's just hiding... Come out, little guy," Fluttershy said softly. "She picked up the cage, and couldn't see it.
Fluttershy looked again, shocked, and dropped the cage.
"Oh my.... I didn't think they'd be out." Fluttershy added. Would you mind helping me look around?
Fluttershy's terrible pets
Fluttershy couldn't believe her eyes...
She kept the ones which had the smallest numbers. She did this dozens and dozens of times, and released the rest into the Everfree forest.
Fluttershy looked away. "I thought that the parasprites would encourage the other parasprites to control themselves. That's what you and I would have done, or Celestia would have taught."
Fluttershy yelled, "But they just ate the other Parasprites' children! Why would they do that? Isn't that wrong? That's even worse than eating all of our crops!"
Twilight tried to calm down Fluttershy. "It's okay, you couldn't have guessed they would have done that. Nopony could."
sniff
Twilight tried to comfort Fluttershy. "Well, I didn't see parasprites eating parasprites out there, so we should be fine."
Fluttershy turned around, in shock. "Actually, I didn't see any parasprites out there. I usually see at least five."
"Is it my fault?" Fluttershy asked.
"You really couldn't have known this would happen. It isn't your fault, and nopony will blame you for what happens to parasprites.
"I'm supposed to take care of the animals! I'm not supposed to make them disappear!"
"It's fine, trust me. We'll return all of these out in the morning, so just feed them, and go to bed.
Fluttershy's terrible pets
Dear Twilight Sparkle,
I have good news about the parasprite invasion last month: It doesn't seem like this will happen again. According to the Equestrian Wildlife Survey, parasprite levels in the Everfree forest are at a record low. They're not sure what's causing this, but it's not really important.
Your mentor,
Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I learned that you sometimes shouldn't look at only one thing when choosing anything.
Your loyal subject,
Fluttershy's terrible pets
Knock Knock Knock.
Twilight approached Fluttershy's door. "Fluttershy? You missed our weekly get-together at the park. Are you there?"
Knock Knock knock.
Angel opened the door, shook his head, and pointed to Fluttershy's shed.
"Oh. do you mean she's in there," asked Twilight.
*SLAM*
Twilight didn't get it. She hadn't seen Fluttershy around for a while, but Fluttershy had been taking good care of the animals. The birdfeeders were full, the animals had food out, the sc-chickens were healthy, but she still hadn't seen her for a week.
Twilight walked up to the shed.
"Fluttershy, are you there?"
"eek!"clang, click, clang.
Fluttershy said, "Oh, I wasn't expecting you... what is it?"
"Well, we usually meet up around this time with our pets each week.", Twilight responded. "You know, me and Owlowscious, Rainbow dash and Tank, Angel and you, and so on. I was wondering why you missed it. Are you okay?"
"Sorry.. I've just been so busy lately... I hope you don't mind."
Twilight asked, "Busy with what?"
"Sorry.... I can't tell you," Fluttershy said sadly. "I just know you'd be mad.... I'll try to make it next week.
Twilight pleaded, "haven't you learned anything? You can trusty me, I'm your friend! What are you doing in there?"
"Umm... no. Could you just trust me here... Please stay out of my shed... if you don't mind, that is..."
"Fluttershy!", Twilight yelled.
"I mean it... you shouldn't. I'm doing this for the little animals... I'm not sure you'd understand what I'm doing. Besides, if you sneak in, something bad could happen by accident... Umm... just trust me on this"
"Well.... see you later", Twilight said.
The doors closed
Twilight wondered what that was all about.
Fluttershy's terrible pets
"With Celestia as my witness, I will figure this out, if it takes all night," Twilight proclaimed.
Twilight staked out fluttershy's shed
Later that evening, I saw fluttershy leaving her shed, carrying a huge box. I couldn't see what was inside, but it didn't seem to be heavy.
Fluttershy locked the doors, and left immediately.
I could try to unlock the shed, but i wanted to know what she was carrying.
I tried to follow her. Unfortunately, she walked through the Everfree forest. To make it worse, she went for an hour, and I'd never taken this path before.
She walked for about an hour. The best I can say about it was that it was less painful and frustrating than documenting Pinkie Pie's Pinkie sense. In other words, it went terribly.
"Okay, this seems far enough... come out now, little guys," Fluttershy gently said.
What could they possibly be? What type of animal would she go that far to hide?
Fluttershy's terrible pets
Twilight couldn't believe her eyes.
"FLUTTERSHY!", Twilight yelled. "Why are you keeping parasprites?"
"Umm... why are you here...."
"Never mind THAT! What if they get out? "
"Umm..."
"WHAT?"
"Well... they aren't going to get out, or find their way back from Ponyville from here. It's a long trip, and there's already thousands of parasprites in this part of the Everfree forest. They don't travel here unless something carries them, and lets them go."
Twilight protested, "Last time, they ate all of our food, and then they ate Ponyville!"
"Umm... that last part was because of your spell, wasn't it?"
"Oops... well, it was, but.."
Twilight asked, "Fluttershy, how many of them are in your shed, anyway?"
"Umm.."
"Was that all of them?"
"well.. Twilight, that is..."
"WHAT?" Twilight pressed
"Two hundred or so," fluttershy guessed. "I'd have to count them again. It's been an hour.."
"Two hundred? Are you insane?"
"Look, I'm much better at taking care of animals than you. I won't let them loose in Ponyville."
"Then what are you doing?", Twilight asked. "If all of them get out, we won't be able to stop them fast enough! I don't even know where we store the accordian."
"Umm.. It's kind of hard to explain."
"Then start talking," Twilight asked in a panic. "If you start RAISING dangerous pests, I don't know how I could explain it to Celestia. And then you start releasing them outside of Ponyville."
"Umm," Fluttershy looked down. "Here's where i found them."
"Oops." Twilight continued questioning Fluttershy. "Even if that's the case, why would you breed them?"
"Ummm."
Everything about this confused Twilight. "They don't seem to have a problem growing... what would make you help them?"
"Umm... Twilight... It's getting late, and I'm absolutely terrified of the Everfree forest at night." Fluttershy said. "Can I explain back at my cottage?"
"Okay, FINE. But you better have a good explanation for this."
Fluttershy's terrible pets
Twilight and Fluttershy looked through every shelf, box, and corner in the shed. They even checked their manes.
She couldn't find parasprites anywhere. There didn't seem to be any holes large enough for them to escape through.
"GAHH!" Twilight screamed. "It isn't ANYWHERE! And I don't hear alarms from Ponyville, so I really doubt that they're spreading.
So where did that red pest go!
She looked back at the cages they escaped from. Well, like Fluttershy said, her parasprites discouraged others from reproducing to quickly.
"Fluttershy, I think another one escaped," Twilight said, exhausted. "I'm sure it had 5 the last time I looked at it, and now it has four."
"Wait, what?"
Twilight exclaimed, "Okay, that's it! I'm watching every one of these until I figure out what's going on."
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Cough
A new parasprite got coughed up by a red parasprite onto the cage. Okay, well, the cage kept it inside.
"Okay, so they don't seem to slide through the mesh," Twilight observed. "That's strange, are they able to teleport? Wait, only unicorns should be able to do that."
EEE
Twilight turned. A yellow parasprite had something blue in its mouth. The cyan parasprite was gone.
Twilight pointed out the obvious. "Fluttershy, it's eating the new parasprite!"
"What? Spit it out right now!"
It swallowed it.