Sidetracked

Chapter 2

The evening came quickly as Fluttershy gracefully strolled back into her cottage on the outskirts of Ponyville. Having finally finished looking after her animal friends, she was looking forward to a good nights rest. She slowly sat herself down on her bed, careful not to wake the sleeping animals that had taken residence in her home. After rummaging through her memory, making sure everything was taken care of for today, she enveloped herself in the blankets and began to drift off to sleep. After some time a small flash appeared outside her window, in the distance. Believing it to be another one of Twilight's spells, she shrugged it off and went back to a peaceful sleep.

Fluttershy awoke once again in a way she did not expect, rather than Celestia's sunlight filtering its way into her home, she quickly realized it was still dark outside, and after scanning the room and getting used to the darkness, she noticed Angel tapping her repeatedly on her right foreleg. And a horrifying scream coming from outside.

"Oh my, Angel, is something wrong?"

Her calming voice did little to stop the small bunny's rambling, repeatedly stomping on the floor and pointing out of the widow, towards the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy pondered for a moment, before taking the hint and quickly making her way towards the window.

"Is something outside, Angel?"

Angel simply nodded his head multiple times.

"Oh, I hope it isn't something scary..."

Angel simply put his paw to his face, before jumping of Fluttershy's back and pointing towards the first line of trees in the forest. Fluttershy focused her eyes on the spot before she caught a glimpse of a figure stumbling and then crawling his way down the road towards Ponyville.

"Oh my goodness! Angel, go and get some bandages and water! This colt looks injured!"

Angel answered with a salute as he heard Fluttershy's pleads, and quickly ran out of the door towards Sweet Apple Acres. Fluttershy grabbed a scarf, not wanting to catch a cold leaving in the dead of night. As she ran out the door she caught a glimpse of her clock "9:43", from this Fluttershy calculated she couldn't have been asleep for 10 minutes after the momentary flash she saw earlier. And could only link the two events together.

"I don't think that flash was from Twilight..."

As she came closer to the lone colt, she came to a horrific discovery. The pony was not only injured, but several more wounds began to open on his body. Bruises, cuts and lashes, the colt looked like he had just been in a deadly battle. She let out a small yelp as the colt looked up at her for a moment and gave one last groan of pain, then collapsed on the road.

Isaac felt the familiar tingle as he found himself surrounded by a white glow, His body slowly fading from sight as he disappeared into the beyond once more. He could only imagine what this life could bring him as he spend the next 5 minutes in white space, thinking about the new ponies he is going to meet and what he could possibly have too offer them.

"What if they don't trust me? What if they think i'm a freak? What if they find out about my past!?"

His thoughts of the events to come came to a halt as he vaguely remembered something Celestia said to him moments ago.

"Wait, what did Celestia say about my injuries?"

His body felt a slight tingling sensation at first as he quickly found the white space dissolving around him to show a new environment. Looking behind him, Isaac found a lush forest under the night sky, and in the distance he saw a town containing a few dozen buildings. "So I guess that's Ponyville..." Isaac said aloud to himself in his usual, dull tone. The town on the edge of the forest had little light shining from it, assuming the stores were closed and people, or in this case, ponies, were asleep. He slowly made his way out of the forest, but something was amiss. The tingling sensation started to worsen, the small feelings becoming more and more painful by the second.

"Oh that's right, I almost forgot I was just in the middle of a FUCKING EXPLOSION!"

The thoughts all but drained from his mind as all he could feel was the pain of the blast taking it's toll on him, the pain seemed to be coming from all directions at once, and he felt blood run down his coat as several lashes appeared everywhere on his body. Bruises followed almost immediately and Isaac felt his vision alternate between the dark road under the moonlight and total blackness. Determined to get somewhere safe, he headed for the town.

Unfortunately for Isaac, the agonizing pain that attacked every inch of his body made it so he could only go so far without a mixture of falling, screaming, and complete blackness slowed his journey to a halt. If this pain was Celestia's form of humor, he hated the thought of the rest of the ponies ideas. As he got a few meters closer he felt the pain wash over him and consume him. He managed to make out a smaller, yellow mare with a flowing, pink mane rush towards him. Just as help finally arrived, he wanted to make out a small smile to his supposed savior, unfortunately the pain was now so severe he could only grunt as his body made a final effort to keep conscious, then everything was black once more.

Fluttershy was almost in a state of complete shock when she saw the colt collapse on the ground in front of her. But, remembering her priorities, she quickly made her way next to the wounded pony and held him in her hoofs.

"Shhhh...It will be alright."

Fluttershy didn't think of carrying the colt to her home, so she had to think quickly if this he was going to survive. She ran as fast as she could back into the Everfree Forest, ignoring the dangers and knowing somepony's life was at risk, would do much more to help. After merely a few seconds after wandering the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy came rushing back over to the now pale pony's side.

"Over here! My house is just over the ridge!"

Several loud steps could be heard as the ground started to shake. And after several trees were pushed aside, a Manticore rushed over to Fluttershy and looked down at the colt, before looking at Fluttershy.

"Please..Please help him..."

As the Manticore saw the tears flowing from Fluttershy's eyes, its look softened as it picked Isaac up, and laid him on its back. After a short journey towards fluttershy's home, it dropped Isaac on the floor just outside. Fluttershy was still weeping slightly as she thanked the towering beast. As the Manticore left the scene and retreated back into the forest, Fluttershy dragged the unicorn onto her couch. Noticing he had a less-muscular build than most colts, she felt calmer being around him. Ignoring his first impressions on her, she quickly called in Angel to help her clean and bandage up the colt.

"Just hold on friend, please just....."

Fluttershy stopped mid-sentence as something highly unexpected happened. The many cuts and bruises started to fade from the pony's body, some smaller wounds remained, but the others had vanished almost instantly from him. Angel stood gobsmacked at the sight of the fresh wounds simply fading away, leaving only small, faint scars along the unicorns body. The blood still covered his coat, however. So Fluttershy set to work on cleaning the marks left by the....Event.

"I just don't understand it Angel.... He was almost gone a few seconds ago...."

Angel looked at Fluttershy before observing the marks left over for a final time, before stroking Fluttershy on the hoof softly, and yawning and walking lazily to his bed. A few more minutes passed when Fluttershy finally finished cleaning the rest of the blood away. Needless to say, she was plain exhausted from what had transpired. She wanted to go straight back to bed, but felt the need to stay close to the sleeping unicorn. if only for a few more minutes. She let out a sigh as she held the colts hoof in hers, and lay next to him as she closed her eyes for a moment.

"Just a few...More........Minutes..."

As her eyes closed, Fluttershy felt herself drifting off back to sleep. Ignoring the consequences of the colt waking up first and finding her holding his hoof. But she felt the need to make sure he was near somepony should something go wrong in the night. Only left wondering what the next day would bring.