Chapter 1: An Abused Animal

Fluttershy panted the whole way to her Sanctuary, rebuilding had only just begun, and yet so much had been accomplished.

The ruined homes have been repaired, barring Sweet Apple Acres, and the ponies that were cured of Swamp Fever were intergrating well with Ponyville.

Fluttershy was the most helpful in the latter, she and Pinkie Pie learned the identity, special talent, and in Pinkie Pie's case, favorite foods and birthdays of every new resident.

In all the excitement, and the terror prior, Fluttershy had neglected checking on her Sanctuary. It was far enough away that she wasn't too worried that they had been attacked, but she hadn't fed her animals all day, having been called away from doing so by Twilight when...the war started.

She hated thinking about it, but ignoring it won't make it go away. Any belief that Luna and the new PDF could keep the Daemons out of Equestria was gone...Equestria was at war...a real war...the likes of which they have not seen in over a thousand years.

Fluttershy knew that a great and terrible change had come, and that it was still happening and would for awhile as Equestria and it's allies grew accustomed to the new normal...waiting for the next attack.

But right now Fluttershy really needed to tend to her animals, not just for their needs, but also for her own. She needed to do something normal while it was still normal.

She was slightly pulled from her thoughts when she heard the familiar boing boing of Angel. She knew that he was going to be upset with her for not having eaten yet, but the normality of such a thing actually made Fluttershy anticipate it.

He came up to her and started hopping around frantically, chittering at her so fast that she couldn't understand him, but she knew that he was yelling at her. "I'm sorry I'm late Angel... I was busy with something important."

This caused the small rabbit to get even more frustrated, but Fluttershy tuned him out until his temper tantrum was mere background noise.

No damage had been done to the Sanctuary, They had been too far away, but it would appear that most of the animals were hiding...Probably frightened by the sounds of ponies dying.

Angel still jumped around her in an attempt to get her attention. She sighed as she persisted in her journey to the food pantry. Eventually he would give up and just wait for her to feed him after he was too tired to jump around anymore. Such was their routine.

Fluttershy came to an abrupt halt when something absolutely foul made itself known to her nose. The stench almost drew what little she's had to eat from her stomach in an instant.

Oh, I see you've met him. Fluttershy finally turned her attention to Angel, who had stopped hopping around her.

"Huh, met who?" Fluttershy asked, realizing that Angel had actually been trying to tell her something important this whole time.

Angel rolled his eyes. Just come with me.

Fluttershy didn't need to follow Angel, her nose was leading her along in a far more painful manner than the rabbit ever had.

Along the way, she finally found her animal friends. They were hiding. Something had spooked them, and it was something inside the Sanctuary

A terrifying thought came to the pegasus' mind. Could it be another enemy? It was plausible, but none of the servants of Chaos that attacked them had smelled like this.

Finally, she and Angel came to the center of the Sanctuary...and she saw it.

It was an ape of some kind, not quite as big as a gorilla, but much bigger than a chimpanzee.

It was also green, almost like a plant. But what drew Fluttershy's attention was it's teeth. They protruded from it's lower jaw in a manner similar to a Diamond Dog's, but they were much bigger.

It was hard to make out much else, considering that it was leaning against a tree in the shade, it was only a single hand exposed to the sun that showed her it's skin color.

"Oh my, have you ever seen anything like him before?" Fluttershy asked Angel, who scowled at her.

Oh, of course I have. I just kept him hidden on a raft of flowers floating in a lake of air-freshener ON THE OTHER SIDE OF EQUESTRIA!!!

Fluttershy immediately knew that if this ape wasn't an agent of Chaos, which she highly doubted, but a creature looking to stay in her Sanctuary, then Angel was going to be problematic.

With a weary sigh, Fluttershy moved to investigate the strange creature.

Fluttershy had to fight for every step forward. That smell was horrendous. She didn't know why it smelled like that, and she prayed that it wasn't a natural musk. But that would wait until another time. For now, she had made it.

"Um, excuse me." Fluttershy said to get the ape's attention.

It turned to her, revealing red, serpentlike eyes... But their physical appearance meant nothing to her.

Fluttershy brought a hoof to her mouth and felt tears building up behind her own eyes. The ape's eyes were empty, there was no emotion behind them...and she had seen it before.

Abuse. A rare but existing problem, even in Equestria. Fluttershy had earned a few enemies among circus owners and Canterlot nobles for the inexcusable way they treated their pets and the legal battles she had fought to save them.

Most ponies only see the visible wounds on a creature's hide, but Fluttershy can see the worst of their scars through their eyes.

Most learned to fear ponies, and Fluttershy would release them into the wild immediately after healing them.

Others developed a deep-seated hatred for ponykind that hopefully, but not often, mellowed out over time...but this.

When Fluttershy looked into the eyes of this ape, she saw a creature that had given up. It didn't hate her, it didn't fear her, it was just going to wait until she was finished doing whatever she planned to do, even if it killed him...he may have even hoped for that, but had given up asking.

Even in spite of it's smell, Fluttershy lunged at the ape. It closed it's eyes in acceptance of it's fate, only to open them again when he realized that Fluttershy was hugging him.

"Oh, you poor thing I am so sorry." Fluttershy managed to say before she burst into tears.

The creature was confused, but then a face of sad recognition came upon him. He said nothing to explain this, not that Fluttershy noticed the face to begin with, he just let the pegasus do as she pleased. It didn't matter to him, he was used to it by now.

Eventually, Fluttershy came to her senses. She wasn't making her guest feel any better, and feeling sorry for him wasn't going to change what had happened to him.

Fluttershy removed herself from the ape and dried her tears. "I'm... I'm sorry about that, I just- ahem- My name is Fluttershy. This Sanctuary is a safe place, and you are more than welcome to stay as long as you like. You're safe here."

The ape's eyes didn't change one bit, but it gave a slow nod that it understood, not necessarily agreed, but understood.

"Um, Are you hungry? I've got plenty of food." Fluttershy said, gesturing in the direction of the Food Pantry.

Once more, Fluttershy was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of Angel's approach. This time, it wasn't as welcome.

Fluttershy turned to face the furious bunny, who undoubtedly pieced together that the ape was staying, and prepared to defend her new guest, and herself, from the rabbit's wrath.

However, as soon as he stopped, Angel's anger gave way to shock.WOAH! Yeah, he's staying.

He didn't sound happy about it, but he understood that arguing was pointless. However, Fluttershy hadn't used the Stare on him, and he wasn't even looking at her.

Fluttershy turned around...and her heart sank again.

The ape had stepped out of the shade, revealing himself to be covered head to toe with various scars, from blade wounds to burn marks to the imprints of barbed chains on his arms.

Fluttershy couldn't comprehend it, even Equestria's worst villains weren't capable of such cruelty...expect one.

The astartes. The trans-human monsters that had attacked them alongside the zombiefied ponies and rogue dragons. Could this ape have been a slave to them? It was the only explanation that she could think of.

She was pulled from her thoughts when she realized that there was something attached to the ape. It was...a sticky note?

"Hmm? What's this?" Fluttershy asked out loud so the ape wouldn't be startled when she reached for him and removed the note.

Dear Fluttershy.

I was in the middle of entertaining a guest when this poor lost soul drifted into my realm from parts unknown, and I just knew that if anypony could help him, it would be you. Best of luck.

Discord.

Well, at least that explains how he got here. Fluttershy put the note aside and went on to feeding the animals, starting with her new charge.

Fluttershy led the ape to her Food Pantry and unlocked the door. "I don't really know what you eat, but feel free to pick anything you like."

The ape looked into the pantry, hesitant to go inside. Fluttershy realized that he thought it was a trap.

"Oh, it's perfectly safe. See?" Fluttershy walked into the pantry and grabbed a jar of cookies. She then opened the jar and took a cookie for herself to show the ape that they were safe to eat.

Fluttershy then handed the jar to the ape, who hesitantly took it. He slowly picked up a cookie and put it into his mouth, chewing slowly before swallowing.

If he liked it or didn't, he gave no sign. He just handed the jar back.

"Huh, are you sure? You seem pretty big to just eat one cookie." Fluttershy said. She already knew that he believed that he was only allowed one, but she didn't want to tell him to eat more because she wanted him to feel independent.

It worked. The ape took the whole jar back to the tree she found him at and sat back down.

Smiling to herself at the baby step, Fluttershy finally got to work feeding the rest of her animal friends.

Author's Note:

And so it begins.

To start off. Yes, I know I said I was going to fix Vol. 1 before starting Vol. 2. But the longer I waited, the more ideas came into my brain. Especially after a bold YouTuber risked his channel to let me see the series finale early. (No spoilers until a public release)

I'm still going to fix Vol. 1 eventually, but I really wanted to write this.

Now that that's out of the way, let's talk about the actual chapter and (vaguely) my plans for the future.

To those of you who haven't figured it out. Yes, it's an Ork.

However, Fluttershy is incorrect in the assumption that it was a slave to Chaos.

For the true answer, look no further than my YouTube page where I posted a video specifically for this.

And now for how accurately am I going to follow the canon for season 9. Well, for starters, even if we take all of their worst moments from every episode, there is simply no way the Royal Sisters would be irresponsible enough to pass the torch at the beginning of a war, so that's not happening. But of course, you're all interested in Grogar.

Yes, the legion of doom is still gonna happen, though Chrysalis will be a bit more unstable on account of the events of last volume. However I will derail from the plot with an alternate ending to Frenemies, which you will see when you see it. (Gotta keep some surprises)

And of course, Luna and the PDF will still be defending the Dream Realm from the forces of Chaos. I'm contemplating whether or not if this will keep Aries out of the fight against Sombra. However, another thing is that since Aries (along with this Ork and 4 other characters) will be inheriting the Elements of Harmony, Sombra will not destroy them. I may have them destroyed later by a 40k enemy but that's a few volumes away.

Okay, that's all I got. Once again, I will be trying for weekly updates, but...life.