Age of Iron Writing Challenge
As Fluttershy’s life flashed before her eyes, something that was happening with disturbing regularity as of late, there was only one question that came to mind: What did I ever do to deserve this? Back in the present, she was strapped onto a scary table in a scary room on a scary spaceship with a scary chaos person-
“Why are you shaking like that, miss?” the mostly-human asked. His voice had a faint buzz to it, like a small swarm of bees trying to speak. “Didn’t you volunteer for this?”
“W-well, umm, I didn’t actually volunteer,” the yellow pegasus started, trying to hide behind her mane. “Mr. Tellis sort of volunteered for me.” Her shaking worsened when she saw the human-like creature put his scalpel down, worried that she'd somehow offended him. Instead, he looked almost… sad.
“In that case, I sincerely apologize for causing you fright,” he sighed. “I realize that my hobbies provoke fear in others. If you could, however, allow my study, then I assure you that no harm will come to you.”
Really? Not once during Fluttershy's time among the Iron Warriors did anyone care about her safety, even if this one had been sizing her up with all four of his black compound eyes earlier. "Umm... I gu-guess it's okay if you study me as long as I don't get hurt."
“In that case, I should warn you that it may appear as though I am hurting you, though I can guarantee that you will be safe.” With that, he picked his scalpel back up and started to cut along her ribcage. Fluttershy flinched away at first, but then she realized that the pain she should be feeling wasn’t there. She felt the chill of the metal, as if the dull end was touching her instead of the blade cutting through her hide. “So,” he said suddenly, easily drowning out the faint sounds of what was happening. “You like animals, right?”
“Ye-es,” she stuttered, her lungs spasming momentarily as her ribs were pried apart.
“Insects?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“For one, the conversation will distract you for now since you seem to be the squeamish sort,” he started. “And two, I love to show off new variations of my pets.” After that, he held up one of his forearms. A bug crawled out from one of the many holes dotting the limb, which honestly reminded Fluttershy of those mean changelings. The bug itself looked like a bizarre combination of a giant wasp and a glow beetle. It buzzed softly as it lazily took to the air, followed by a few of its brethren and illuminating the area in a soft, orange glow.
“Wow, they're beautiful.”
“I'm glad that you think so,” he said with a buzzing chuckle.
“I am sorry if this is personal, but why do you work for them? I mean, you are so polite and..." She paused and looked down at what seemed to be her liver. "W-well, maybe 'harmless' isn't the word, but friendly at the very least.”
He looked thoughtful for a minute before he responded. “Have you seen the Nurglites onboard? They speak of father’s ‘gifts’ and yet they only think of the plagues and pestilence,” he practically spat the words. “They fail to see the good that can be wrought from his nature, the cures that are wrought from the diseases themselves. With my devotion to Nurgle, I can do more than nature would ever hope to achieve. I realize that my new position will require me to shed blood in the name of the warp, but following chaos does not mean you have to be evil. That would be a form of order, after all.”
“Discord would say the same thing, occasionally,” Fluttershy mentioned, feeling oddly comfortable around the bug man. Hmm... “I just realized that I never asked for your name.”
“It’s Drell, and yours?”
“Fluttershy.”
“Well, Fluttershy, it’s been a pleasure talking with you, but I need to compile my findings. I’ll put everything back when I’m done.” Drell sifted through some papers and found a large book and a pen. He flipped through page after page, allowing brief glances of dozens of species and subspecies, before he found a new page. He wrote the word ‘Pony’ at the top of the page with the subset ‘pegasus’ followed by her name, scrawled in a tiny flourish in the bottom right corner. “By the way, Fluttershy, I noticed that your immune system is rather lacking in the area of modern diseases. If you would like, I could implant a bacteriophage designed to hunt those harmful viruses.”
“Umm, wouldn’t that go against your religion, or something?”
“Nah, it’s fine. Nurgle favors neither the phage nor the virus it hunts. He loves all of his children equally.”
“Well… can I think about it?”
“Take your time.” With that, he started to draw. He worked slowly, looking back at her regularly, and had only finished her the lower third of her body over the course of an hour, but Fluttershy could easily make out the individual hairs in her hide and tail. As fascinating as his attention to detail was, however, Fluttershy soon found her eyelids drooping as time started to wear on.
***
As Twilight wandered the Harvest’s halls, looking for room 139, she reflected on the stories about its resident. While he was nowhere near as feared as Serith and several people are fine with talking to him, many mercenaries still give his room a wide berth. Few people admitted to being there and no one would say what happened inside.
Surely it can't be that bad, ri-
She found the door. Before the room number was the name ‘John’ and the words ‘come and see’ were written on the door. The door opened for her.
“AAHHHH!”
“EEEEEKKK!” Fluttershy’s eyes snapped open and she nearly jumped off of the table. The straps holding her down prevented her from falling out, so she just ended up smacking Drell with one of her wings and knocking him over.
“Fluttershy!? You're alive?” The pegasus looked like a dissected frog.
“There is a ritual in place on the operating table,” he wheezed, returning to his feet. “It redirects blood flow and negates the pain response. Your friend is in no danger.”
“Then why? Why would you do something like this?” Twilight was about to pass out. Even after all that she’d seen, this horrified her.
“Ponies, or pegasi at the very least, happen to have an anatomy almost identical to Terran horses,” he began, pinching the cut on Fluttershy’s abdomen. The injury healed over instantly as though it had never existed. “If that weren’t the case, however, I could do more harm than good while treating your kind in battlefield conditions. That would be especially bad considering that I have been assigned to the Equinoughts Squadron. As such, I need to study every species and subspecies for discrepancies.”
At first, Twilight was appalled to think that she would end up on that table. Then, a new thought entered her mind and replaced that look with a wicked grin. “Does that include batponies?”
Author's Note
Well here it is: the first entry into the collection. The one comes from a self-imposed prompt regarding Fluttershy's meeting with an OC Nurglite doctor that I made up in a way that delivered grimdark material in a non-grimdark way. My first prompt for anyone interested is a what-if scenario where Sliver stumbles into a patch of Poison Joke and turns into a pony (I picture him as an iron-grey Earth Pony with a green-tinged gold mane and a gasmask fused to his face, but you can choose your own appearance for him). Your goal is to describe the event and people's/ponies' reactions to the change in at least 3,000 words. 50 points if you can work in Doctor Hooves having a panic attack.The points don't matter 
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