Time: Late Pleistocene, 11,000 BCE

Location: Asia, Siberia, Russia

Mission Log: Day 1

Several people on snowmobiles arrive at the river where Fluttershy and the injured mammoth are waiting. Not long ago, Fluttershy found the female mammoth and her sister, who had been killed in a trap by hunters. Not wanting to risk leaving the injured female alone to retrieve her team, Fluttershy called them in and stayed with her while she waited. When the team arrived, they all saw the same thing Fluttershy did. Some crossed the river to Fluttershy and the mammoth, while the rest kept guard on the other side. Fluttershy speaks to one of the team members, explaining what happened and discussing what to do.

Back in the Ice Age, it's not long before the team arrives with some antibiotics. It's the only way to fight the infection that is rapidly taking over the mammoth's body.

The sick mammoth attempts to lift herself off the ground but fails again. She wasn't happy with Fluttershy around, even though she was not carrying a weapon and came alone, but now there are more humans. The rest showed up on these strange, loud beasts. She's never seen them before nor seen a human riding another animal.

All she's witnessing confuses her because humans would go straight for the kill if they confronted a mammoth in her position, but these aren't. What's more, they're not carrying those dreaded spears. Nearly every human she'd seen and encountered had one, and the ones that didn't were always accompanied by one that did. However, the whole group around her now lacks a spear. Despite this, though, she's terrified. Humans are always bad news; to her, these are no exception.

"I’m here!" cried Twilight as she disembarked her snowmobile. Normally the bookworm utterly despised the bitter cold, but the chance to meet her favorite extinct animal was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity too good to pass up. She jumped at the opportunity to travel to the Pleistocene.

To Fluttershy, her timing couldn't have been more perfect. "Twilight! Thank goodness you're here!" cried the animal enthusiast.

"Where's the mammoth?" she asked. Fluttershy frowned sadly as she gestured towards the gargantuan figure lying in the snow. Twilight gasped, immediately smitten by the magnificent appearance of the renowned Ice Age icon. Her fascination quickly turned into horror upon seeing the poor creature's miserable state.

"It's a really desperate situation; we're gonna lose her if we don't do anything," Fluttershy said to the cameraman. “Once they go down, one in four elephants never get up again. So, just gotta hope that she's back on her feet in the morning. We can get her back to Prehistoric Park and look after her properly."

Twilight grabs a dart with antibiotics and loads it into a pistol.

"Don't worry, sweetie. This will only hurt a bit."

Once ready, she walks toward the mammoth before kneeling a few feet from her and firing the dart into her upper hip. The impact startles the mammoth, believing they had just stabbed her. However, she calms down a bit when she realizes that whatever hit her barely penetrated her and that the human who shot her had walked away while the others kept their distance.

Fluttershy watches on, hoping that she will be better in the morning. But she knows the difficult road ahead awaits them. She, Twilight, and the others begin to set up camp and prepare for what nightfall may bring them.

As evening begins to turn into night, one of the men who had been patrolling the area comes running back.

"Fluttershy! Fluttershy!"

He reaches Fluttershy’s tent, and Fluttershy comes out.

"In the woods." The team member points toward the forest with his flashlight. He and Fluttershy look out. They don't see anything but hear something moving through the dense terrain.

In the forest, a predator is observing the kill site. They and their clan had been there a day before when they killed a mammoth that had fallen into their trap. After being driven off by the other mammoth, they decided it would be best to return when it had left or was too weak to fight back, potentially leaving them with more food and materials. However, when this one arrived, it was discovered that others had taken it.

It's evening, and the hunters are back to claim their prize.

While the team monitors the forest, Fluttershy heads to the injured mammoth and kneels beside her. Although she's too weak to move much, she still doesn't like that Fluttershy is right next to her, even though she and her group have not attacked her.

"What's going on?" Twilight asked, noticing the commotion around camp.

"Everyone's a little bit nervous. We think the hunters are coming in closer."

Twilight gasped. "Oh no! We can't let them get to her!"

"Don't worry." Fluttershy reassured, "We were gonna take it in shifts to watch her tonight.”

The inventor smiled gratefully. That quickly faded as the infirm pachyderm gave a pitiful moan. "Poor thing. She's just so sick, I feel like she needs some companionship."

The mammoth gently closes her eyes as exhaustion and weakness force her to try and sleep. She hasn't slept since her sister was killed, and despite how much she doesn't want to, she comes close to letting it take over. Fluttershy and Twilight, meanwhile, watch in worry. They know there's a good chance she won't last the night, but they hope she pulls through.

The night sky hovers over the river. Wolves howl in the distance. The two mammoths are attracting predators from all around. Night is always a dangerous time in the wild, especially during the Pleistocene.

As night falls, the prospect of easy meat attracts some more unwanted visitors.

Fluttershy shines a flashlight toward the forest edge, looking out for predators, while Twilight does the same, although with a headlamp. Luckily, nothing has come close yet.

"I'm glad we're here at the end of the last Ice Age. If we had been here a few thousand years earlier, there would have been cave hyenas prowling around all over the place. There may be some left, but I haven't spotted one. You could tell by their yellow eyes shining in the light. Cave hyenas have been on the decline in Eurasia for nearly 10,000 to 20,000 years at this point, and they're going to become extinct soon as well if they aren't already. There are wolves farther away; if they come in closer their eyes will shine green. What's terrifying is that, at this point, wolves would likely view humans as prey, and they'd be moving in absolutely massive packs, especially when compared to packs in the 21st Century. And, of course, the worst predator of all, the human hunters, they know the kill is there."

And humans have no eyeshine at all. So they're the hardest to spot. It's going to be a long night.

The distant howls carry on as Twilight and Fluttershy continue their sweep across the forest's edge. As they do, a bark catches their attention. They quickly shine their lights toward where it came from and spot several pairs of green shining eyes. The bark, in particular, scares Twilight because they're not coming from wolves. Twilight quickly gets to her feet as several dogs charge toward the weakened mammoth. Twilight charges toward the dogs with Fluttershy in tow, which causes the rest of the team to open their tents to see what all the commotion is all about. They all quickly join in when they see the girls fighting off the dogs. Some grab sticks and broken spears and use them to push the dogs back.

"GET AWAY!"

The mammoth panics as she sees the dogs. She can tell the difference between wolves and dogs. Throughout her life, she only saw wolves as a threat to calves, so she didn't fear them as much as she got big enough to not be prey to them. However, dogs terrified her. The dogs themselves weren't much of a threat, but if they were around, humans were close by. She uses some of her little strength left to lift her head and trunk and release a brief trumpet, hoping to scare them off.

"LEAVE HER! LEAVE HER!"

The dogs attempt to fight back. They've grown with and even been raised by humans, so they understand when humans don't want them around, especially when it looks like another tribe. The dogs turn tail and bolt back toward the forest, finding themselves outmatched.

With the dogs gone, Twilight and Fluttershy turn back to the mammoth to see if she was harmed in the attack. Thankfully, she wasn't.

The mammoth looks back at them and the team and feels surprisingly calm, even with some of the humans holding the broken spears. She'd never seen humans fight off dogs before, especially if it meant protecting a fellow mammoth. It confuses her to no end, but even so, she knows that more humans are coming, and so do Fluttershy and Twilight.

Fluttershy and her team have managed to ward off the dogs, but they know their job is far from done. The mammoth is only safe if they can keep the rest of the predators at bay.

The girls and the team immediately get to work on setting up torches around the mammoth. Most predators fear fire, so it will keep them away from the mammoth and the camp. But human hunters don't fear it. They've long turned it into both a tool and a weapon. The torches alone won't keep them away.

The girls and the team finish setting up and lighting the torches and then focus on the forest. Seconds passed before they could hear the crunching of twigs and snow in the distance.

"Fluttershy, we have company!"

"The hunters, they're skirting the edge of the forest; I knew... I knew they'd come back for the kill," Fluttershy states. In the distance, the hunters are getting close to the clearing and can see the girls and the team. To the hunters, Fluttershy, Twilight, and the team are just another tribe. They hope to either scare them off or possibly negotiate with them. Either way, the mammoths are all they want.

Fluttershy knows she has little time, so she rushes back to her tent and grabs her flashlight. She turns it on and shines it toward the forest.

The hunters stop, not sure of what they are seeing. The light coming from the woman across the river is vastly different from fire. It looked like the sun but much smaller. The sun, to them, was a sacred and powerful entity. Seeing something like it in a woman's hands filled them with fear. Were the woman and her tribe powerful entities themselves? They quickly turn around and head back into the forest to get away from these entities.

As Fluttershy shines her flashlight across the treeline, she briefly spots the hunters as they retreat.

Perhaps it's just the sight of Fluttershy, but fortunately, they don't come in any closer.

With the hunters gone, Fluttershy turns her attention back to the injured mammoth and sees Twilight already beside her, petting her good shoulder and listening to her slow breaths and slow, steady heartbeat. She walks up to them and crouches down in front of the mammoth.

"You're alright," Fluttershy gently says to the mammoth. The mammoth, however, couldn't be more bewildered by this. After the dogs had left and the humans around her set up sticks with fire on them around her, she believed that she was going to die. She could hear the hunters coming in from the forest and was almost ready to accept her fate. However, these humans managed to drive off the hunters, as she could hear them retreating into the forest.

Why? Why would these humans not kill her? Why would these humans protect her? This goes against everything she knows about humans. Humans hunt and kill her kind, not protect them. She's seen what humans do to mammoths. She's lost her whole herd to humans: her matriarch, her mother, her cousins, her aunts, and now her sister. After the hunters had killed her, they injured her and left her to die. She thought she would die, but then these humans came along, and all they've done is protect her.

Fluttershy slowly and gently places her hand on her head. The mammoth finds it a bit soothing. She doesn't grumble at these humans to warn them to go away. She stays silent and welcomes the gentle touch.

Maybe there’s some humans that won't kill mammoths.

Maybe... she can trust these humans.

Time: Late Pleistocene, 11,000 BCE

Location: Asia, Siberia, Russia

Mission Log: Day 2

The sun shines on a brand-new day. The dangers of the night are gone. The songs of birds and the rushing water of the river fill the air.

The mammoth grumbles as she awakes. Though still weak, she's feeling much better. She sees the leader of these humans and her companion approaches her. While she's still cautious about them, she doesn't see them as immediate threats, especially after they and their group protected her earlier in the night.

Dawn. She's still alive, but will she be strong enough to get back on her feet?

"You can tell a dog's healthy by a wet nose, and you look like you've got a wet trunk, sweetie," Twilight chuckles to the mammoth as she gently caresses her trunk.

Slowly, the hairy pachyderm raised her sinuous trunk, bringing the fingertips to gently touch Twilight’s nose, who giggled on contact.

Fluttershy chuckled. "I think she likes you."

The mammoth manages to get a glimpse of her sister. She knows her sister is dead, but she wants to go to her. Using all her strength, the mammoth lifts herself while the girls backs away from her.

"OK, keep calm. Her ears are coming forward," Fluttershy says. "Back off! Back off! Even though she's woozy, she could still charge. Keep calm."

The two couldn't be more happy. The mammoth had beaten the odds and was back on her feet. The female mammoth takes a quick look at them before turning her attention toward her sister.

"She's not showing any aggression at all towards us. She's going back with her dead sister."

The mammoth walks up to her sister's dead body. She flicks one of the spears off of her sister before caressing her, still mourning. She doesn't know what she will do without her. They were the last of their herd; now it's only her.

"It's so exciting she's up, but we've got to get her away from her sister to get her back to the Park, and that's gonna be difficult."

The big question is, will the mammoth leave her Ice Age world and follow Fluttershy and Twilight back to the 21st Century? There's only one way to find out.

Fluttershy sets up the Time Portal as the mammoth releases another trumpet. Once the Portal is set, Fluttershy and Twilight slowly walk toward the mammoth, getting her attention. She rubs her trunk on her sister's tusk one last time before she turns toward the two.

The mammoth can tell that these humans want her attention. After everything they did for her and showing that they’re not a threat, she decides to see what they want. She walks toward them, even reaching her trunk out to them while they slowly back away. However, she can see that they’re leading her toward the river. Why though? Do they want her to get a drink? Do they want her to cross it? Why are they leading her toward the river?

Meanwhile, Fluttershy and Twilight do their best to lead her toward the Time Portal. Fluttershy hasn't activated it yet since they want her close enough to walk through without scaring her off. So far, she's cooperating with them very well.

"Good girl," Fluttershy says gently as she and Twilight lead her closer to the Portal. "Just a little further. Come on. Come on, you can do it."

The mammoth stops and watches them, unsure of what they’re doing. Twilight becomes a little worried that she will turn around and walk away. She needs to urge her to continue following her and Fluttershy, and quickly.

"Please, come on," She gently urges her. Fluttershy grabs the remote from her pocket and activates the Time Portal. The Portal's sudden appearance surprises the mammoth, who is shocked by this strange mist. However, the humans before her urge her to continue following them. She doesn't know why, but the mammoth feels that she needs to follow them through this mist. The girls continue to back up and enter through the Portal, and the mammoth follows them.

Time: 21st Century

Location: Prehistoric Park

On the other side of the Time Portal, the Park staff watch in anticipation as they wait to see who or what comes through. After a few moments, Fluttershy and Twilight come through with a mammoth in tow. Everyone is excited when they see her, but their excitement quickly turns to concern when they see that she does not look well.

She's made it back to Prehistoric Park, but she's in urgent need of help.

"Sunset! Twilight and I got a mammoth, but she's injured! Get here fast!"

Author's Note

Martha made it through the night and to Prehistoric Park. It was fun to get into her head during her ordeal in the Ice Age. Back then, mammoths would view humans as nothing more than mammoth killers, so it was nice to see her perspective on how Fluttershy, Twilight, and their team treated her.

During the night scene, we were introduced to cave hyenas (Crocuta crocuta spelaea). This is where the change had to take place. 11,000 years ago, cave hyenas were either extinct or close to it, especially in Europe and Siberia. For accuracy, I didn't include them, but I left it vague if there were any around or not. Cave hyenas thrived on the open plains of the Mammoth Steppe, where they preyed on animals like horses, bison, large deer, and young mammoths and rhinos. However, around 30,000 to 20,000 years ago, cave hyena populations began to drop due to climate change, which changed their preferred grassland habitat to forest, which caused their preferred prey to become more difficult to catch, lowered their populations, or outright caused them to go extinct. The final blow would have come from competition from predators like humans and wolves, which were much better adapted to forested environments. If any cave hyenas were left when Fluttershy visited, there's a very low chance that any would have shown up that night.

Additionally, I decided to change the wolves that Fluttershy and Twilight fought to dogs. Dogs would have long been domesticated then. Besides the fact that huskies portrayed them in the show, the barking made me change them to dogs. Wolves do bark, but they mainly do so when threatened. Also, it's honestly nice to include early domesticated dogs.