//------------------------------// // 1: The Unlikeliest of Action Heroes // Story: The Tatzl // by Raging Mouse //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle awoke with a start, eyes flitting back and forth. A noise, then, had disturbed her? There was light beyond her eyelid, yet it was weak and she still felt tired. Not morning then. She waited for a moment, half-alert, before deciding she’d been startled by something in a dream. Then, as she was about to snuggle deeper into her pillow, she heard a voice from her bedroom door. “Um, Twilight?” Oh, Twilight thought. It’s merely Fluttershy… Twilight sat upright in her bed, staring bleary-eyed at the door forced ajar by the pony peeking into her bedroom. “Fluttershy? You’re back?” The pony at the door was indeed Fluttershy, and responded with a smile and a nod before speaking. “I’m sorry I woke you up, but I need to ask… Oh my.” The last was in response to Twilight yawning and stretching hard enough to make her jaw creak and her back pop. “Sorry, Fluttershy. What did you need?” “Um… I brought back some friends that needed a new place to stay. I hope you don’t mind if I lead them to the woods near my cottage..?” Twilight considered this for a moment, trying to dispel the drowsiness she felt. “You brought animals through the portal?” “Um.” Fluttershy tilted her head in thought. “...Yes?” The two ponies presented a silent tableau for several heartbeats before Twilight blinked and chuckled. “Sorry, I’m still sleepy.” She glanced over at the end table beside her bed and read the face of the clock sitting on top of it. “It’s… Oh my, a little before four in the morning.” Twilight sighed. “make sure they don’t cause a disruption in town, okay? I’ll come by sometime tomorrow… today? After sunrise.” She smiled at Fluttershy. “Then I’d love to hear how your vacation was.” Fluttershy looked unsure for a moment, before smiling once again and nodding at Twilight. “I’ll see you later. Sleep well.” She backed out of the doorway and closed the door without waiting for a response from Twilight. More than happy to go back to sleep, Twilight groaned and threw herself backwards into Luna’s realm. She was snoring mere seconds later, and in deep sleep by the time sounds of hooves and slithering emanated from outside the bedroom door. Later that morning saw five friends trotting up the woodland path, heading towards the remote tree cottage outside Ponyville that Fluttershy called home. Joyful banter filled the air whenever the constant birdsong and other animal calls failed to overpower it. At least, until Twilight, in the lead, stopped and shushed. “Girls, it’s best if we keep quiet for the rest of the journey. Based on Fluttershy returning in the middle of the night, it’s likely that the days where she was aren’t in sync with ours. She’s probably sleeping right now, so we should be gentle when we wake her up. Rainbow Dash, do you have any suggestions?” Dash was flying, as always, about two pony-heights above her earthbound friends. She saluted Twilight before uttering: “Leave it to me!” Next moment she was already a streak heading towards the loft window of Fluttershy’s cottage. She ended up hovering right in front of it, and she extended a hoof to tap on a windowpane. Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie and Applejack watched Dash while they completed their own approach to the cottage. Right about as Twilight reached the cottage’s front door, Dash seemed to perk up before waving at something through the window. Then she landed next to Twilight and said: “Flutters is awake and will be greeting us in a bit.” Twilight smiled. “Thanks, Rainbow Dash.” Then she grinned and pranced in place. “I can’t wait to hear how her vacation was!” Rarity nodded. “I am as curious as you! I can’t believe that out of us all, it was our dear Fluttershy who managed to stay away for the longest time!” “Hey!” Dash seemed to take issue with this. “I’d still be chilling on a beach with the wonderbolts of that world, but duty calls, and all that!” Applejack, who’d moved to Dash’s side opposite Twilight, raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “Didn’t you say you were being chased by the local guard and had to flee through the portal..?” This caused Twilight’s head to snap towards Rainbow Dash, eyes wide and both eyebrows raised. Dash aimed a sheepish grin at Twilight. Then she retreated a bit and growled at Applejack over Twilight’s back. “Ixnay on the ardguay!” Then she went back to grinning at Twilight, who by then had adopted a perfect deadpan expression. “Rainbow Dash, that code is decipherable on the fly by four-year-olds. It seems you left out a couple details when I asked you to write down your vacation through the portal for me. Am I going to have to re-label that particular dimension as hostile now?” Dash sputtered for a moment before throwing open her wings in a shrug while rolling her eyes. “There was a little misunderstanding about teaching the local Rainbow Dash how to perform a Sonic Rainboom. Above a public beach resort. That’s all! I’m sure they’ve already forgotten about it due to how awesome we Dashes are.” Twilight narrowed her eyes. “So… it was still good?” “Oh yeah!” Dash laughed. “I asked you to find the awesomest, most radical world out there and you pulled through! We went racing in rocket-powered airships! It was great!” “How about the rest of you girls?” Twilight turned around and let her eyes wander between Pinkie Pie, Applejack and Rarity. All three assured Twilight, in their own manners, that their respective vacations were great. Rarity seized initiative when the general group chatter died down. “It was absolutely divine! Four days of all the fashion in an entire world!” She swept her head in a wide arc, making her mane flutter. “I have inspiration enough for at least five seasons!” Applejack opened her muzzle, but Pinkie seemed to fire off a sentence without breathing in. “The Positively Pinkietastic Partycracy of Pinkietron Alpha says ‘hi and thanks for letting your Pinkie Unit’—that’s me—’come stay at our dimension!’ They were so happy that they promised not to assimilate you even a little bit if you wanted to come visit, which they said you totally should! They’re baking cookies!” Applejack waited a moment to see if Pinkie had more to add. Then she sighed. “It was… great. Really great. Thanks again, Twilight.” “I’m happy; I wanted to give you all the best vacations I could.” Twilight was still smiling when she heard the door behind her open. She turned around and nodded in greeting to Fluttershy. Then she shrieked and shot into the air fast enough to rival Rainbow Dash. This caused a variety of reactions in her friends. Rainbow Dash and Applejack adopted wide stances and looked around. Rarity and Pinkie Pie ogled Twilight where she was hovering. Fluttershy ducked away from the closing door and left only a narrow slit to peek out of. This tableau held until Twilight pointed a shaking hoof at Fluttershy. “Sorry! Sorry—but you know how I don’t like snakes!” That drew the attention to Fluttershy and the three things slithering through her mane. She herself almost went cross-eyed trying to look at one dangling off her forehead. She gasped in apparent realization. “Oh! I’m sorry, I can see how you could mistake—no, Twilight, these aren’t snakes!” She aimed a sheepish smile at the five ponies outside her door. “Um, just a minute please, girls?” Then she backed away from the door, shutting it so fast she almost hit her own muzzle. Twilight landed awkwardly, rustling her wings folded while exchanging glances with her friends. Fluttershy’s gentle but exasperated voice emerged from inside the cottage, though muffled to incomprehensibility by the door, interspersed by shuffling sounds. Then there was the unmistakable sound of hooves on stairs. A couple heartbeats after that the door reopened, fully this time, and Fluttershy beckoned her friends to enter. As Twilight entered, she stared at Fluttershy. Twilight had last seen an expression like Fluttershy's while helping with Rarity’s cat’s medical exam. It was the resigned but determined expression of one who expected discomfort (or scratches) in their future. Fluttershy was definitely steeling herself for something as she bade her friends sit in her living room. She took a deep breath and held it for a while before speaking. “Girls, I’m sure you are here to ask me about my vacation. Well, I had a wonderful time. The other world was exactly what I had asked Twilight to find; a pristine wilderness.” Fluttershy bit her lip, averted her eyes and tapped the tip of her right hoof in a nervous tattoo against the floor. “Well, almost pristine.” Twilight looked stricken. “I’m sorry! All my scrying showed nothing but wilderness! Are you saying there was some kind of civilization there?” “Not quite. There had been a civilization there, but nothing now except ruins. Oh, except for the tower of Sombra, with his disembodied eye at the top…” All at once, in perfect unison, five ponies flew up from their various couches and chairs to shout “Sombra?!?” Fluttershy nodded. “Yes. But I managed to, um, topple it. With help from some friends I made there. By... throwing his Crystal of Incorporeality into Mount Canter. Which, um, was a volcano there. So he’s, um, gone.” This was met with stunned silence. Then Rainbow Dash slapped her forehooves onto her thighs and groaned. “Fluttershy had a more awesome vacation than I did! This can’t be happening!” General laughter erupted while Fluttershy blushed and hid behind her mane. Once the general joviality died down she cleared her throat. “Um, it was very scary, but he had cursed all of Equestria, making it fall into ruin about a thousand years ago, and I had to save my friends. But when we did it, and his tower collapsed, Mount Canter erupted!” Fluttershy shivered. “Volcanoes are scary! The molten rock was rushing towards us so fast, so I told my friends to follow me through the portal! And… Here I am. Here we are.” Twilight beamed at Fluttershy while her friends cheered and congratulated her. When the cottage was calm again she spoke. “That’s why you said you had animal friends with you when you came through the portal. I can understand why you’d want them to have a new home if a volcano destroyed their old one. Normally, I’d speak against bringing creatures from other dimensions through the portal like this for any length of time, but I’m sure you’ll take good care of them and make sure they will fit right in. Even if they are snakes.” “Oh!” Fluttershy turned sheepish again. “Um, like I said, they aren’t snakes. Also, there are a few things you should be aware of.” There was a pause while she gathered courage. When she continued speaking, it was with a much firmer tone. “I need to tell you that while my friends will seem, um, startling to you, they are harmless as long as you don’t do something silly. One of my new friends is upstairs, and if you are ready to meet her then I would like to call her down.” The five ponies in front of Fluttershy looked at each other, not entirely without trepidation. They knew Fluttershy defined grizzly bears as harmless using the same metric. They all still nodded. It was with a hopeful smile that Fluttershy turned towards the stairs up to her loft. “Come down, Twilight!” This, naturally, confused Twilight sitting on the couch in the middle of her friends. She was about to raise a hoof and question Fluttershy when she heard hoofsteps from the loft and a pony came into view on top of the stairs. Or, at least, at first glance it looked like a pony; like Twilight Sparkle herself even. There were some major differences not apparent at first glance. The Twilight on the stairs had much fuzzier fur, almost to the point of being unkempt. Then, where the Twilight sitting on the sofa had a well-brushed tail of hair, the Twilight on the stairs dragged a much longer and heavier lizard tail behind her, complete with purple scales. The tail was frilled on the top by a row of short and bristly hairs the same colour and pattern as couch-Twilight’s tail, but repeating the pattern many times. The pony on the stairs had a horn but lacked any wings. Couch-Twilight’s eyes grew ever larger as she took in the smaller differences between her and Stair-Twilight. There was no cutie mark adorning the hips of Stair-Twilight. Instead, on the temples, right behind both eyes, was a reddish image of half of a six-pointed star; one half to each temple, surrounded by five smaller stars; two to the left and three to the right. Stair-Twilight stopped half-way down the stairs, and that was when Couch-Twilight saw the final difference between them. Stair-Twilight opened her mouth, but instead of a normal jaw, the lower part of her mouth split into two, opening her mouth into three parts. And out of the mouth came three long, snake-like tongues that waved, as if in greeting. Fluttershy grinned hopefully as she turned back to her unmoving, wide-eyed friends lounging in her living room. “This is Twilight Sparkle, the Tatzlpony. Tatzl-Twilight, these are my friends in my own world, including your counterpart, Twilight Sparkle the Pony.” Couch-Twilight’s brain decided to take a break right about then, and she fainted with a weak groan about snakes.