Jumpy in: The New, Irregular Life
“Come on out, Jumpy! Don’t worry, we’re all nice!” Fluttershy said as she opened the dark cage. All of the animals surrounding Fluttershy began to watch anxiously as Jumpy slowly emerged from the cage growling like an angry dog. Jumpy… was not very happy.
Jumpy was a headcrab: a very clumsy headcrab. He was being taken as a PET by some sort of alien pony that he had never seen before just because he took the wrong portal. He was supposed to end up in Black Mesa, but instead he landed in Equestria. One really couldn’t blame him for being upset.
“Welcome to the family, Jumpy! These are all my nice, animal friends. You’ll get fed tasty herbs three times a day, and you’ll make tons of great friends!” Fluttershy cheered.
Jumpy felt sick. He couldn’t even imagine eating herbs for the rest of his life. In fact, all he wanted to do was to eat Fluttershy’s head off. Jumpy growled a little louder, making several of the animals keep their distance.
“Oh, don’t worry guys! I’m sure that’s just his little animal way of saying hi and thank you. I found him in the forest, alone and afraid. Just remember to be nice to him!”
"Hi and thank you"? More like "screw you and I hope you taste good". Fluttershy was completely bull-crapping the entire animal audience when she said that Jumpy was afraid in the forest. In fact, Jumpy even attacked Fluttershy, but the pony pulled off some kind of ninja trick, nailing the headcrab to the ground and threatening him to "be nice or else". Jumpy was still young and had so many yummy meals ahead of him, so he had to give up the fight or else he would probably get killed.
Suddenly, a bunny shoved his way through the crowd of animals with a serious, overconfident look on his face and a carrot was sticking out of the left side of his mouth. Jumpy knew this character was going to be an interesting one. The bunny hopped around Jumpy, sniffing him at every angle like he was the house hall monitor or something. He specifically took note of Jumpy’s pointy legs, creepy looks, and odd movement. He locked is eyes on Jumpy and pointed to him as he backed away slowly as to say “I’m watching you, pal.” Fluttershy stood there with a confused look on her face as the bunny backed into the crowd, disappearing from sight.
Just then, the microwave in the other room began to beep, startling nearly all the animals that surrounded Jumpy. They all immediately shifted their attention toward Fluttershy, who smiled like an innocent child.
“Oh my! Dinner is already done? Well, I’ve warmed up some nice soup for you all! Come on, into the kitchen!” Fluttershy encouraged as all the animals were lead to the kitchen… except for one. One stayed behind and was merely looking into the kitchen with no desire of heading in there. It was a brown bunny, obviously female. Jumpy was confused to why it stayed behind, and was especially confused to when it looked over and smiled at him. He growled in confusion as the bunny began to hop over to him. The bunny squeaked as she hopped up and down in happiness at Jumpy, who had nothing better to do but jump up as well, except higher. They continued to hop up and down for a few moments until the bunny put her paw on his forehead, and Jumpy HATED it when things touched his forehead.
Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Fluttershy was giving every pet a little bowl of soup until she noticed something odd: there were two empty seats. After counting all of the animals in the room, she figured that there was only one possibility who the two could be: Jumpy and a bunny named Britney.
“Oh dear, where could they be?” Fluttershy thought to herself as she began to wander around looking for them. As she turned the corner into the room where she had just previously been, Jumpy sat in the middle of the floor where he had been for the past five minutes… alone.
“Jumpy, head on in! Dinner’s ready! Also, have you seen Britney? She’s a brown bunny.” Fluttershy asked as she looked around. Jumpy shifted his body slightly and lightly hissed as to say “no”.
“Oh, well, can you keep an eye out for her? Or… whatever you use to see? I’m going to go check upstairs. Have a good meal, you little rascal.” Fluttershy said as she dashed up the stairs. Jumpy hissed to himself and casually walked along into the kitchen to grab his first dinner, leaving a messy trail of blood and a few rabbit bones behind as he did.
This was gonna be a long, long life for Jumpy.
It was about an hour after dinner, and Fluttershy decided to give up on the search for Britney. She was sure Britney would show up eventually, for most of her pets do. It’s not like Jumpy ate her or anything, so all was good. Speaking of Jumpy, Fluttershy simply didn’t have the heart to pass up the opportunity of a walk for her new friend. When she explained to Jumpy about the walk, he was less than thrilled, especially at the fact that he had to wear a leash.
“Come on, Jumpy! We’re gonna go for a quick walk around the block.” Fluttershy said as she gently tugged on the leash. Jumpy felt ridiculous as he was; a leash wrapped around his body. Could this get ANY more embarrassing for him? Jumpy growled in anger and began to process in his tiny brain ways to cleverly kill this stupid, slave driving pony that was forcing him to waste his energy walking, but for right now, he had no choice but to comply, for his mouth on his underside was half way covered by a leash.
It was torture for Jumpy to walk anywhere with Fluttershy because everywhere he looked as he walked, he wanted to eat everything that moved! Butterflies, wild animals, and even other ponies all looked tasry. He wanted all of their flesh in his belly, which was a lot bigger than one would think. Speaking of other ponies, they were the true definition of freaked out. Nopony had any idea of what Jumpy was or what he was capable of doing, so they kept their distance to the best of their ability. It was if he could just launch at somepony’s face if he wanted to. While they were on their walk, Fluttershy ran into one of her friends, Twilight Sparkle.
“Hi, Twilight!” Fluttershy greeted her friend.
“Hello, Fluttershy! I was just on my way to get more paper. There’s a big test tomorrow, so I want to prepare to the best of my ability. Also, what in Celestia’s name do you have on a leash?” Twilight asked as she looked at Jumpy.
“Oh! This is my new pet… thing, Jumpy! I found him in the forest.” Fluttershy briefly explained.
“It looks like the result of a failed cloning experiment.” Twilight crudely commented.
“Twiliiiiight! Be nice! It’s his first day with me and I want to give him a good impression of the town!” Fluttershy retaliated.
While the two ponies were arguing about what Jumpy is, or what he should be, Jumpy saw his opportunity to escape. Fluttershy had tightened the leash about as tight as an untied shoelace, so Jumpy really could have slipped out at any time, but he found that now was the proper time to make his sly move. With little to no force, Jumpy slid out of the leash undetected and wandered into a nearby alley between two buildings.
Now that Jumpy had escaped from the clutches of adorable evil, he could wander about on his own. He wandered into alley after alley, mostly because the dark soothed him, until he ran into a slight problem: he accidentally ran into two ponies talking in an alley about something very, very personal.
“You really had to do it today?” asked one mare.
“Yes! There was no other way I could grind it up any other time! I have a life besides all this, believe it or not!” the other pony replied.
“Fine! Here’s your bits. Now run off before anypony sees us!”
Jumpy soon took notice that they were exchanging something. One was trading gold circles for a bag of white stuff. Jumpy didn’t know what was going on, but he assumed it wasn’t good and growled softly, grabbing both of the ponies’ attention.
“Uhhh, Carrot Top? What the hell is that thing? It’s growling at us.” Said the pony with the white bag.
“I don’t know, but it’s small, stupid, and creeping me out! It looks like some kind of mutated flea.” The pony named Carrot Top said.
“I don’t like how it’s staring at me.”
“It’s got no eyes, you idiot!”
“Then I don’t like how it’s standing toward me!”
“Augh! I’ll kill it, hold on.”
Jumpy didn’t like the idea of being killed by the pony, and he also didn’t like being called a mutated flea. It was time to take action and add a little carrot to his part of a balanced meal. As Carrot Top stepped toward Jumpy, he put his back legs in a springing position, ready to leap when the time hit.
“C’mere, ya little nuisance!” She said as she lifted her hoof above Jumpy.
Jumpy then shrieked and launched himself toward Carrot Top’s face.
“Gyah!”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
“Jumpy? Oh Juuuumpy, where did you run off to, little one!?” Fluttershy “shouted” as she searched all over the nearby parts of town.
“Face it, Fluttershy, he’s gone.” Twilight said. “It’s getting dark and there’s no sign of him.”
Fluttershy sighed as she hung her head in dismay. “First Britney, and now Jumpy. Am I being too careless? It feels like they’re just slipping out of my hooves.”
Just then, in a nearby alley, a familiar shriek sounded off, lifting Fluttershy’s head up and making her gasp. Jumpy soon came strolling around the corner, and when he saw Fluttershy, he froze.
“Jumpy! There you are you little rascal!” She said as she flew over and put the leash around his body, tightening it harder than before. “I thought you were gone forever! Whew!”
In curiosity, Fluttershy took a peak around the corner of the alley to see what attracted Jumpy to it, and in the darkness she made out the silhouette of a pony. What she didn’t see was the gigantic blood puddle right in front of her. When she went to go meet the pony, she flew right over the puddle.
“Excuse me, are you the one that found my little Jumpy here?” Fluttershy asked sweetly.
“Th-that THING is your pet!?” The pony exclaimed, terrified and frozen against a wall. She looked like she had just seen Jumpy maul somepony to death!
“It’s a male, I’ll have you know. Don’t be so rude toward my animal friend.”
“B-b-b-but—“
“Ah ah! You were rude to my friend. I am going to simply thank you for finding him and be off.” Fluttershy said with a firm look on her face. She looked down to Jumpy innocently. “I’m so sorry your first walk had to be so traumatic for your little heart. Come on, buddy, let’s go home.”
And so, Jumpy and Fluttershy waved Twilight a goodnight and left for home. Fluttershy was somewhat right: Jumpy’s first walk was a bit uncomfortable and weird, but at least he got to snack on some of Equestria’s finest carrots.
