• Published 28th Dec 2016
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Welcome to Batstralia - Damaged



A mare and her foal. A human family. A buck-load of magic. They are all coming to a sleepy little town.

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A Look Back - 4

Language check. Anything wrapped in [ ] in this chapter is spoken dream speak, everything else is in English.

"Compendium of Change." Rose looked at the title of his book, and smiled. "Now to fill it. Let's see. I have Lyra, Joyce, Robin, Dream, Dave, Steve, Paul, Roy, and my own stories, and—" As he spoke, he read off the titles on each of the notebooks. A tenth one sat on the table.

Reaching a wing-claw out to the notebook, he saw it had a name proudly written in his own handwriting on the cover. "Tufts?" As he flipped the cover open, Rose tried to recall writing the book, or even talking with the bat enough to write it. Sure enough: it was written in his handwriting. The first words stood out, separate from the rest.

Tufts says by the time I notice this, it will be okay to remember it, but I'm not allowed to publish his name.

Memories flooded back. Rose remembered agreeing to Tufts' silly sounding—at the time—restriction. His heart sped up at the screech from the bat when he had been casual about agreeing to it. That screech seemed to be the source of the receding block on his memories.

"You have to ask me for my story, it's how it works." Rose was repeating what the bat had told him at the time. Of course he had asked Tufts for his story, it would be interesting, even if he couldn't release Tufts' name with it.

More of those memories came back, and Rose's eyes widened. "Tjinimin. Holy shit Tufts is Tjinimin! He's a god!" For a moment he stared at the page, realizing he had the literal account of the birth of a god. The first god, if his tale had it right.

Rose started to read back, making sure he remembered everything about the tale.


There wasn't "nothing" at first, the world was already here. It already had people on it, and they were already pretty awesome. But some of them had done something that made me be.

I was alive. Me: Tjinimin!

The world was mine. None of the other gods were around, so I got to explore in all my batty glory. My huge, sweeping wings cupped the air, and sent me swooping from tree to tree. Every tree I came to was laden with fruit, or so it seemed—the world itself was welcoming me.

A tugging at the fabric of magic, what had made me, caught my attention. It wanted a pattern. It wanted a form to remake humans into.

My first instinct was bats. Bats are so awesome, after all, but it didn't fit the magic properly. While I pondered what to do, magic started to work on its own. Terror gripped me for the first time since I had awoken.

The pattern was dark, twisted. I could smell rot and death around it—it wasn't a very batty pattern at all.

"This is all wrong," I screeched. "I will not have anyone become a namorodo." So I asked the magic what patterns it liked, and it returned back all the patterns people believed in, and one more. "Ponies? What's a pony?"

I didn't care, the pattern was good enough for me, and was honestly starting to grow on me. I took it, but put my own spin on it. Wings. Big, batty, wings. Cute little fluffs of hair at the tops of their ears (to indicate the best spots for rubbing, of course). A screech that could scare off a yara-ma-yha-who. Fangs to pierce the skin of the thickest mango hide. Of course, they should be colored mostly like me—I never said I wasn't vain.

So I built the pattern around the pony shape magic had given me, and I designed my own people. "Ol' light-show can keep her parrot girls. I'll take a bat any day!"

When I pushed the pattern out, magic liked it. Together, we pushed it so hard that it became part of magic itself. There would be bats everywhere! I screeched loudly in excitement.

Days and weeks passed by, and I got bored.

There were plenty of fruit trees around (and if there weren't any, I would make one), but there weren't any other bats around. Of humans, of course, there were plenty. I watched the first slowly changing to be one of my awesome bat ponies, but the second one looked like a normal pony. I kept a close eye on them, which is why I didn't see the pain that leapt up and attacked me.

I might be a god, but I was still in this body, and this body can feel pain.

Screaming in pain, I tried to pull free of the metal that had attacked me. It bit into my wing, it clawed at my side, and when I pulled away, it held on tight.

Humans were nearby, but in my fear and shock I didn't notice them until one spoke to me. "So, mister bat, are you going to play nice and calm down?"

Parrot girls be damned, the human who was beside me was a thousand times more desirable. I don't think she noticed my nod, and I couldn't stop screeching in pain, but I held as still as I could.

I waited, she seemed to be offering me comfort, but I felt in my heart that I could trust her.

She talked to another human, who brought her a box of things. Things that I knew would have to hurt me to get me free. And she did. She had to cut my wing to free it of the fangs of steel, but she did it carefully, and murmuring soft things to me.

Wrapped up in a blanket that crinkled around me, I felt her body—warm and soft—through the layers.

She took me home in her arms, she wrapped me in warmth when I needed it, she cradled and comforted me when it felt like my heart would rip from my body in fear, and she showed me her children. But when she gave me my first taste of apple juice, I realized how much I had fallen in love.

"Tufts," she had said. "I think that will be a good name for a handsome bat. What do you think, Tufts?"

It wasn't Tjinimin, but I couldn't think far enough to correct her. Snug as I was in her care, I gave as assenting a screech as I could manage under the circumstances.

Inspecting my wings, she checked the wounds the fangs of metal had left. "Hold on, please. This is going to hurt again," she said. It dawned on me that she was a medicine woman, and a moment before I could give an excited screech, pain seared my wing membranes.

She really was a medicine woman. No creature that walked, crawled, or flew could cause so much pain, and do it in a way that you knew was needful. So I screamed as loud and hard as I could, but I refrained from scratching her.

I was wrapped back up in the soft, crinkling blanket, and she pulled me to her chest. It was a rather nice chest, and given the choice between a ditzy, cute parrot girl, and my new savior, I would have picked the medicine woman every time. "I'm sorry… I am so sorry. I had to do that."

Not letting go of me, the medicine woman built a little sling for me, wrapped it around her neck, and suspended me inside. Turning, I pressed one ear to her clothing, and heard the soft thudding of her heart. My own heartbeat adjusted to match hers, and I couldn't stop a yawn breaking free.


Of course, I told Dream Thunder. She is my mightiest foal. She takes after me, and even dreams the Dreamtime. It's why I told ol' twisty-noodle to call her Dream Thunder. But the point is, she knows who I am.

But then, when I was on my way to her graduation, I felt the same thing the others did, but I knew what was causing it. I had to sneak away from everyone, giving them a screech to make them forget about me for a little while, and headed home.

Home. It's odd, but even when all of Australia felt like my home, it didn't feel as home as where my Joyce lived.

I slipped in Dream Thunder's window, and grabbed her perch with practiced ease. Wrapping my wings tightly around myself, I slid into the Dreamtime.

Magic was sloshing. There was holes in the dyke, and it was leaking past and over the giant hula-hoop constantly. She was fighting it, but she wouldn't hold forwever.

"[It's time. I told you this wouldn't work, and now look at you]!" I shouted, hanging from my tree.

"[YOU COULD NOT HAVE DONE ANY BETTER. WHAT WAS YOUR PLAN FOR ALL THIS]?"

I edged along the tree, found a mango hanging from a branch, and cuddled up to it. "[It certainly wasn't to make a tidal-wave of magic that will cause mass panic and even more damage]." I was chewing on a mango as I spoke—the best part about dreams was you could do more than one thing at once, and it didn't have to make sense. "[Probably let it slowly flow out. Let people get used to it. Let it change them slowly. Months would go by as a little more changed here and there]."

She went silent, struggling to keep the magic back as best she could.

I waited some time, enjoying my mango. "[I give it about an hour of real-time]."

Snakes can sigh, or so I learned. When one the size of infinity does it, it is really loud. "[WHAT DO YOU PROPOSE]?'

"So now you're asking me for help]?" I turned to look at the great snake. "[Well, for one, we need a bat pony. Then we are going to ask them nicely to help us]."

"[WE DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THAT]!"

"[And three, we are going to give them all the knowledge we have of what that],"—I gestured at the slopping waves of magic—"[is going to do to the world. Do you have any idea what it is going to do to the animals? I managed to get magic to protect the humans, but look at that beast that you had my Joyce save]."

"[WHO WILL WE ASK]?'

"[You know who. But first you have to let it all go, and then we have to argue]." I finished chewing on the last bits of the mango, and cast the seed down to the ground.

"[WHAT DO YOU MEAN]?"

I groaned at the huge hose, reached out a wing and gently poked one of its coils. A trembling wave sprang up in the snake's body, and suddenly her coils sprang apart.

We managed to get back into a full argument by the time Dream Thunder joined the Dreamtime. She looked so small and worried that I put my wing around her. Here, she was a bat pony still, perfect as I created her.

She caught us mid-argument, but I managed to reassure her enough that we could explain what we needed to do. She had to shape the ideas, the information, so that it would fit in not-gods. It wasn't going to be easy, she wasn't a god herself, but if anyone could do it, Dream Thunder could.

Well, of course I cheated; I was a god, cheating is what we did best. "Was." Still am, of course, but a lot less of one. I gave Dream Thunder enough oomph, and enough magic, that all that knowledge wouldn't break her. Like a bat, she clung to the tree beside me and let the storm rage around her, but not break her.

And as you know, she did it. She built The Knowing for us—for you—and sent it ahead of the wave of magic.

"[I'm done after this. You take care of Australia]." I huddled beside Dream. "[I think I'll go with my Joyce, see a different world]."

"[BUT I NEED YOU. WHAT WILL I DO WITH]—"

"[You don't need me. Go to the shores, circle those. It will take a lot longer for the magic to grow high all the way around Australia. By then, the rest of the world will know what the magic does, and be ready for it]." I kissed Dream Thunder on the cheek. "[I'll leave my daughter to help you, she has most of my power, and more wisdom than either of us]."

"[TJINIMIN]—"

"[No. Just 'Tufts' now]." I pulled Dream Thunder out of the Dreamtime, leaving the huge noodle to deal with the magic on its own. I had a family to take care of.


Rose couldn't believe what she read/remembered. It was unthinkable. Tufts had given up most of his power to Dream? And what happened to the Rainbow Serpent? She had so many questions in her head, and with Joyce, Lyra, and Tufts gone to Equestria, no one to ask but Dream Thunder.

Author's Note:

Tufts: Well if you cut down on the snack time then nap time can be longer.

[angry, disagreeing bat noises]


I hope you have all enjoyed this "look back" at some of the other characters. I think it has given some more world-knowledge, and a little more backstory for a few who otherwise would be background ponies (or bats).

What now? On with the show! There is a bat pony, a unicorn, and a former god walking into Equestria, and they need a send-off!

That previous paragraph sounds like the lead-in to a terrible joke.


So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any pony within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right pony to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post! They will pick one question per chapter.

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