Fluttershy arrived in the Ponyville library with no more fanfare or spectacle than if she'd been teleported in from anywhere less remote than a magical comic world. That is to say, she still displaced enough air to rustle a few loose papers on the table, but not much more than that.
As soon as she opened her eyes to the comfortingly familiar space, she sighed and let her body slump to the floor.
Finally, she felt like herself again.
She laid there for several minutes doing nothing but breathing in the soothing smells of wood shavings, dragon, and owl. Letting her heart slow down from its panicked pounding. Slowly but surely, as she slipped into a near-meditative trance, the bottomless pit of red hot anger inside her began to fade away.
Waking up in the comic book world had been one of the singularly most terrifying experiences of her life. Nightmare Moon, Sombra, the Changelings; they'd all been scary and dangerous monsters for sure, but not since her bad experience with Iron Will's assertiveness training had she been so terrified of herself.
From the moment she'd woke up on that rooftop she'd been furious. Not at anyone or anything, just mad in general. Every breath was a struggle not to snarl, every word a fight not to snap at her friends over completely reasonable questions and suggestions. It pushed at her body from the inside, a surging tide of wrath ready to break out and rip and tear until it was sated. A raging beast that fought to be released.
It'd felt like her body was a runaway train, and she merely a conscripted passenger trying desperately to slow it down and warn ponies off the track.
It was worse than the time Discord had inverted her personality to make her cruel and petty. At least then her mind had also been warped enough that she didn't know anything was wrong.
With a few more minutes of deep breathing, the last of the anger dispersed back into whatever comic book magic had created it and she rose as normal, ordinary Fluttershy once more.
But before she could do much more, there was a knock on the library door followed almost immediately by it opening.
“Hey Twilight? Is the latest issue of Scootering Weekly in yet?” A familiar orange figure slipped through into the room. “Oh. Hey… Fluttershy.”
“Ah, hello Scootaloo.” She plastered a smile on to hide her surprise. It mostly worked, but there was still something strange in the filly’s expression that felt off. “Twilight’s not here right now, but when she gets back I can let her know you stopped by, if you like?”
“Nah, that’s okay. I’ll come back later. I don’t wanna… interrupt anything.” Scootaloo shook her head as she slipped back through the door. “Sweet cosplay, by the way.”
A farewell froze on Fluttershy’s tongue even as the door clicked shut, leaving her alone once more. She turned around with glacial slowness as her anxiety slowly climbed through the roof.
There, reflected in perfect detail in the library’s meticulously polished dedication plaque, she saw herself.
Still clad in a near-scandalously skintight green bodysuit.
She nearly fainted right then and there as most of her blood rushed to her cheeks. She could only thank her lucky stars that she hadn’t actually gone outside and walked through town before she noticed. But even then, once her embarrassment finally died down, the pegasus found herself faced with a new problem, one that comic book artists had never bothered considering.
“How do I take this off?!”
Hey there. Thanks very much for getting yet another chapter up. Certainly appreciated the work that went into the exchange, characterization and future chapter set-up. Well, Fluttershy is back in her own world, but still in the costume she had on in the comic book dimension and working to calm herself down thinking about when Discord brute-force brainwashed her AND when she took Iron Will's assertiveness training too far. And, yeah, liked the chat with Scootaloo before Fluttershy was wondering how to get the costume off. That's probably something she would be envying Twilight and Rarity for because their telekinesis would probably make it much easier for them to get out of the suit.
VERY much looking forward to more of this.
The fact that there's a magazine called Scootering Weekly amuses me.
Yeah, being a Hulk stand in does come with its share of problems
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Everything tears off, when he becomes big and angry - but not his pants. Thats why he is so angry.
Ah, Saddle Rager's secret: she's always angry.
I can already see Twilight goes wild on the prospect of being able to literally take something out of the book.
Wait, if the suit follow Fluttershy back into the real world, why not others? Okay, the Hulk personality was created by the book's magic but what about the ability itself? If it was then Discord would add it into his list of reasons why he would not upset Fluttershy.
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*bucks mane-iac's living hairship out of the sky*