Based on a True Story

by Shrinky Frod

Plan B: Infiltration

“I should have thought of this sooner!” Twilight gasped, looking up from her latest sheet of notes to see Rainbow gently stroking Fluttershy’s mane. “Fluttershy, are you okay?”

“You don’t understand,” Fluttershy murmured, eyes gazing off into the distance. “She does… things with that camera! Horrible things! You just don’t understand….”

“Shh, shh, it’s okay Fluttershy,” Rainbow reassured her, wrapping a wing around her gently. “We won’t let the scary photographer make you do any more nature documentaries, we promise.”

“She wouldn’t let me stop the alligators! She just kept going on about the ‘circle of life!’ Those poor, sweet little hippopotamuseses….”

“Hippopotami,” Twilight corrected her reflexively, beating her wings to land gently next to Fluttershy and hug her from the other side. “It’s okay, you don’t have to think about it any more.”

“Like great big shaved guinea pigs….”

“Shh, just relax….” Twilight’s horn began to glow, and the gentle pink color spread over her butter-yellow marefriend, easing her into a gentle sleep.

“She should come out of it in five minutes and not remember what she was so upset about,” Twilight explained. “Now, Plan B!”

“I still think we should just go back to the castle and eat, Twilight, it’ll be better for Fluttershy not to have to deal with a crowd!”

“Rainbow Dash, trust me, I know Fluttershy very well,” Twilight countered patiently.

“Yeah, ‘cause you were her best friend in flight school, right?” Rainbow muttered under her breath.

“And once she’s inside the restaurant with us, she won’t have time to think about those side jobs that Photo Finish had her involved in,” Twilight continued, patting Fluttershy’s back with a wing and apparently missing Rainbow’s irritation.

“Just tell me that Plan B doesn’t involve setting me up with Hoops or Dumbbell from Flight Academy,” Rainbow sighed.

“Of course not, Rainbow! And Fluttershy, I am sorry,” Twilight added. “If I’d known that Photo was so…”

“Obsessed with me?” Fluttershy asked with a shiver. “You don’t know the half of it, Twilight, the modeling job for La Romane-“

“ Infatuated with you,” Twilight grinned shakily, one eye twitching as she tried to snap Fluttershy out of the worst memories she could have for the night’s plans, “I wouldn’t have chosen her either. I honestly thought it would be more comfortable if I picked somepony you knew, Flutters. Plan B doesn’t have any of those problems. Plan B is much simpler. You and Rainbow will just go inside and take my reservation.”

“Wait, but what about you?” Fluttershy asked, successfully distracted. “We can’t just leave you outside!”

“Don’t worry,” Twilight grinned. “I won’t be waiting outside for long! Just go ahead and order a nice salad to start with, I’ll be there before it’s even ready.” She spread her wings, and took off towards the castle.

“Maybe she’s going to go get one of the guards?” Rainbow suggested with a light shrug. “Okay, level with me, ‘Shy. Do you think Twilight’s going a bit overboard with all this?”

“Oh, no,” Fluttershy answered quickly, shaking her head.

“Really?”

“No,” Fluttershy confirmed. “She’s going… uhm… a lot overboard.”

Rainbow Dash smiled and leaned over to kiss Fluttershy’s cheek lightly.

“Think we should start coming up with Plan Z?”

“Oh, yes… maybe over some wine?” Fluttershy suggested with a faint smile, nodding towards the corner where the restaurant was waiting for them.

“Sounds good to me!” Rainbow grinned, standing up and offering her marefriend a hoof up before they started to trot towards the restaurant.

Meanwhile, Twilight landed in the Royal Gardens, landing in the middle of a clearing surrounded by moon lilies and night-blooming narcissus. Her horn glowed as she reached out, plucking a gorgeous bouquet and summoning a bit of paper from her quarters to wrap it.

There, that should make up for the little difficulties we had getting in! Twilight smiled to herself as she tucked the bouquet securely under her sash and settled in to focus on her teleport.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash… focus on the two of them, she prompted herself, running through the mental exercises involved in a long-distance blind teleport. She pictured her marefriends, pictured them enjoying dinner. Sitting on either side of a nice salad, waiting for her to arrive, enjoying the ambiance and knowing that they were about to get one up on that smug Stuffed Shirt. She was so focused on her teleport that she didn’t notice as a fly settled on one of the lilies, crawling down into the flower.

Her horn glowed, the violet aura spreading around her body as she started to discorporate herself for the coming leap through time and space. Eldritch calculations ran through her mind as she prepared for the leap, numbers being twisted through functions few mortal unicorns could fathom, let alone master. One at a time, dimensions fell to Twilight’s superior mind, all of space, all of time, all of existence blurring into a single instance, all while she focused on the critical goal of separating them properly when she was finished.

I’m going to be with Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash for dinner… now!

With that thought, Twilight vanished from existence, discorporating into an invisible cloud of particles so fine that they slipped through the very weave of the cosmos. For a brief instant, she felt the sensation of endless oneness, her consciousness dispersed throughout reality. This was the part of any teleport that was most dangerous. She had to find her target, literally pull herself together, and slip back into reality at the exact place she wanted, without the slightest error in terms of being too close to the objects around her. And she had to do that while making sure to get every organ in the right place, every particle back where it belonged, her dress intact, the bouquet safely tucked away, and making sure not to accidentally fuse herself with the cloud of fly particles that were unexpectedly scattered throughout her own.

Wait, what?

In a span of time that felt like an eternity and an instant all rolled into one, Twilight unfolded the reality within her mind, latching onto the sympathetic thread connecting her with her marefriends and the meal they were supposed to be sharing. Her body was flooded with sensation as she reincorporated herself. Tiny hairs reformed instantaneously, wings spread out almost involuntarily as her nerves screamed out in the agony of rebirth, light and sound and scent all overwhelming her brain.

All of this happened to Twilight Sparkle. From the perspective of an observer, she simply disappeared from the Royal Gardens in a flash, and reappeared in La Romanetique not a heartbeat later. That heartbeat finished just in time for her eyes to open, and a flash of silver to pass in front of them as a heavy knife fell, striking the cutting board with a distressingly final thud.

There was silence in the kitchen of La Romanetique as the garde manger stared, dumbfounded, at the mare who had just materialized on his cutting board, and the lavender fur shavings that had been deposited on the carrots he’d been slicing.

The silence was broken as a very confused, disoriented fly drunkenly buzzed its way out of a night-blooming lily and sought out a safer place to rest for the night. Preferably somewhere very far away from the burgeoning insanity it had momentarily literally been a part of.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy zoomed for the door of La Romanetique as shouting erupted from within, followed shortly by potatoes, carrots, and other, sharper souvenirs of Twilight’s rare (albeit brief) tour of the kitchen facilities.

Stuffed Shirt calmly reached into his podium and pulled out a cushion, tossing it absently to the blurs of blue and yellow that streaked past him. Just then, the chef de cuisine, garde manger, and several other assorted members of the kitchen staff came out, carrying between their assorted magical grips one young alicorn.

“I do not care if you are Princess Celestia herself!” The head chef roared. “NOPONY enters ze kitchen without my permission! Try zat again, and I will break out ze cookbook from Griffonia!” With that, he and his staff swung Twilight back and hurled her unceremoniously through the Canterlot night sky.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash screeched to a halt, carefully placing the cushion Stuffed Shirt had thrown them just in time for their marefriend to land on it.

“Well then, next table?” Stuffed Shirt asked the stunned onlookers. “I believe we just had a reservation cancel for the evening….”

Author's Note:

Well, that could've gone better, couldn't it?

I wonder what Twilight will come up with next! Tune in next time for Plan C: The Takedown!

Comments

[Jondor]

At least she didn't end up merged with the fly.

[Seether00]

They could just go to another restaurant. Don't think Twi will go for that now though.

[the flying spaghetti monster]

I was expecting a gruesome twi-fly hybrid where Twilight barfs up enzymes, digests the bouquet, and slurps up her meal through a flexible nozzle where her muzzle once was. Of course then, Celestia saves the day, Twilight's crazy streak ends in an instant, and the story is over. I'm kinda glad we didn't go that far; we avoid the 'elevator shaft' this way.

Also, I like this story: a lot! It's to fun to see Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, and even Twilight project reams of adorable pony affection. More please!

[Diamond Sparkle]

Very funny.

[Shrinky Frod]

3894646
Nah, we won't go that far. But I knew parts of the audience would expect the fly gag to play out, so I wanted to distract from the more obvious missed teleport gag.

[thefirewarde]

I assume an invisibility spell is out of the question.
I guess time travel to warn her past self to plan around the difficulty is a no-go.
I assume that creating a pocket dimension isn't reasonable.
I don't think the restaurant owners are willing to sell, and I doubt Twilight's stipend and savings are that generous anyway.
Fusing any combination of the ponies involved into either a chimera or a hybrid won't end well.
Constructing a rival restaurant or an addition to the current restaurant will run afoul of building codes, among other things.
Insisting on "I have an imaginary friend" might actually be the most sane solution so far.

[Shrinky Frod]

You know, I actually hadn't thought of the hideous amalgam solution....

[Kagitaar]

Threatening to kill someone, especially a head of state is usually a good way to end up with the cops at your door.

[Matrixpony]

Twilight acting very twilight, great characterization.

The response of the restaurant staff however, making less and less sense. Stockade anyone?