Hello, everyone! First of all, you should know that English is not my first language (I'm Italian) so most likely there will be grammar mistakes (maybe there are mistakes in this sentence, too XD), I'm trying my best but I can't be perfect, so if you see a mistake, please let me know and I'll correct it.

I'd like to thank the user Ninxi who helped me starting to write this story.

Ice Age belongs to Blue Sky Studios

Enjoy! :D

Manny's POV

After our last adventure, which was also the most important one, since we saved the world in addition to ourselves, each of the members of the herd spent the days happily and smoothly. In fact, Peaches and Julian left on their honeymoon, Diego constantly took care of Shira, and both were excited about becoming parents soon, Sid spent all his time with Brooke, very happy to have finally gotten a girlfriend, and Buck, Crash, Eddie, Gavin, Gertie and Roger were always on the move, seeking adventure. Ellie found ways to join them, exploiting her opossum abilities to keep up with her brothers and their friends, assisting Shira, or engaging in "hippie" activities with Sid and Brooke.

I was the only one feeling unhappy; despite I made several attempts to spent my time with them, I always ended up being bored (even more than I was when I was alone), or I did something wrong, becoming just a nuisance to the others. And even though I knew it wasn't going to last forever, I couldn't take it anymore, since it was a situation I never faced before. So, one night when I saw a shooting star (which fortunately wasn't a meteor) I wished I could start all over again, to get back to when I was happy, but I wouldn't have to.

The next morning, I woke up in a cave, but as soon as I was able to make out shapes clearly, I noticed it wasn't my cave, even though it looked familiar.

"Ellie? Crash? Eddie? Are you here?" I asked after I stood up. Obviously, I called those who lived in the same cave I did, but I got no answer.

"C'mon guys, come out! If this is supposed to be some type of joke, it's not funny!" I sad loudly, since I thought a joke could have been the only reason for which that was happening. I walked towards the entrance to the cave and, once I came out of there, I immediately recognized where I was, and that confounded me: I was on the continent, in a place which wasn't far from where I met Sid and Diego more than twenty years before.

I tried to make sense out of it, but I couldn't: we left the continent more than three years before, and even then, it was about sixteen years that we were there for the last time.

"But it doesn't make any sense! Why on Earth should I be here?" I asked myself loudly, since there was no one there; then, I scratched my head, and I got the impression that there was less hair on it, and looking at my trunk and my body, which I didn't notice previously since I was confused by the absurd situation, I saw that my hair was indeed shorter.

"What the hell happened to me?!" I asked myself. I saw a frozen puddle and I took the opportunity to see myself in it, and looking at my reflection, I noticed that I was a different kind of mammoth. I didn't know what to do, I was speechless, but then I noted there was something else weird in me, but I wasn't able to figure out what it was. Only by focusing on my features and my eyes, and after taking a "quick look" to confirm, I realized it: I was a female!

I screamed loud enough to scare some birds, perched on a tree a hundred yards from me, which flew away quickly. Again, I was speechless, unable to say even one word.

"It took you long to notice it!" A female voice exclaimed insidiously, but looking around I saw I was alone.

End POV

"W-who said that?" The mammoth asked stuttering, being too upset, scared and confused to say anything else.

"I did it." The voice replied, making the herbivore look around again, obviously without seeing a soul "Forget it, you won't find me because I don't have a body."

"W-what are you, then?"

"It doesn't matter who or what I am, just think of me as a voiceover; but what you need to know is that I'm responsible for what happened to you."

"C-could you elaborate on that?"

"You see, you, your family and the rest of your bizarre herd lived in an universe we can call, er, facilitated, but after all you could tell it was so because of all the deeds you did, which almost reached the limits of what's possible. So, when I've known you didn't like your life and you'd have wanted to start all over again, despite everything you had, I've realized you had to get a lesson. And that's why I brought you here, you're living the day when it all began, but it'll be a lot harder, and you'll stay here forever." The voice explained emotionless.

"B-but what about Ellie? And Peaches? And all the others?" The mammoth asked worried.

"Well, there's something you need to know: in this universe, the animal species not only reach adulthood at different times, as in yours, but also have different life expectancies; in particular, the one of the opossums is a few years, so I can't guarantee that an opossum family was alive when Ellie lost her herd. And obviously, Peaches was never born, and I guess she'll never do, don't forget that you're a female now!"

"Right! Tell me why on Earth I'm a female!" The mammoth exclaimed; "she" already forgot about" her" new gender, because of the unexpected voiceover to arrive. That let the tears which were falling after the new that Ellie could be died and that Peaches doesn't exist to stop.

"Yes, I almost forgot. You know, there's another substantial difference between the mammals in two universes: the ones of yours are all monogamous, while most of the ones in this aren't, and only mothers take care of the children. So, if you were a male, you wouldn't have suffered because of the death of your son and your mate, because you wouldn't have lived with them and so you'd never have known, and you wouldn't have gotten there with the hope of staying away from everyone. I made you a female so that your children were killed by the humans and it made you so disrupted to leave your herd, to want to be alone and to get here."

"But couldn't you turn me in, I don't know, a male mammoth who lost his mother and/or his siblings and became grumpy because of this? Or, er, in a male mammoth who didn't think an ice age was starting and wanted to show everyone he'd have survived in the north without any problem?" The mammoth asked, with a raised eyebrow, questioning the voice's intelligence.

"Oh, of course I could, but it wouldn't have been funny! I'll really enjoy seeing you trying to find the right position to pee or trying to run away from the males which want to mate with you." The voice laughed.

"What?!" The pachyderm asked shocked.

"Never mind." The voice said quickly, continuing whispering "Just be glad winter isn't the mating season."

"Anyway," "Manny" spoke, after sighing in frustration "Why did you turn me in a different kind of mammoth? I thought my species was the only one."

"In fact it is, in your universe, but there are many here, including your previous species, which is called woolly mammoth, and your current one, called giant mammoth. Since you never missed a opportunity to tell your family and friends you were the biggest land mammal, I thought you'd rather have preferred to be it here, too."

"Got it. Well, at least I still hold the record." "She" told her, and then asked sadly "S-so you told me Ellie could be dead, right?"

"Maybe she's, maybe she's not, maybe she got reunited with her family, maybe she's been adopted by someone else and so on, who knows."

As upset as "Manny" was, "she" was relieved Ellie could have been alive, but then he got worried about the fate of two mammals which were very important to him.

"And what about Sid and Diego? Are they here? Am I going to become their best friend again?"

"Just so you know, I'm not as despicable as you think, in fact, I made them have memories of their previous lives, so that you can reunite with them immediately and they'll be with you for years to come. Obviously, they don't know this happened because of your wish, and I'll let you tell them, I'm not a monster."

"Well, thanks." "She" replied, not so happy, because "she" was still talking with who put "her" into the bad situation, and plus it would have been difficult to tell them the truth.

"I know you're mad at me because of what I did you, I get it, but it was necessary to teach you a lesson, trust me, so I hope you'll live as best as you can. For example, I know the guilt that weighs you and Sid down since you come into possession of Pinky, and now you can fix that." The voice said, and for the first time "Manny" didn't look at her as someone who just wanted to hurt or make fun of "her".

"You're right!" "Manny" exclaimed after a brief reflection "I and Sid never forgave ourselves for not pull Pinky's mother out of the water, because, even if it's not sure, perhaps we could have saved her, and the baby wouldn't have grown up without his mother. But now that Diego's not evil, he won't force her to throw herself from the waterfall, and she'll survive!"

"You're starting to get it, Mildred." The voice laughed, taunting the mammoth who was still annoyed by "her" new condition.

"Really funny." "She" said sarcastically "So is Mildred my name?"

"Well, what did you expect? You knew your mother proposed the name Manfred in your universe, so, being a single parent here, she chose a very similar girl's name, more or less with the same meaning."

Before Man-, er, Mildred could even say anything else, she heard several voices, whose volume got louder and louder, until he saw a group of mammals of different species walking together: it was the head of the migration. However, the animals didn't belong to species he knew.

"Wow, what kind of mammals are those?" The mammoth asked interested.

"You see, evolution works differently in this universe, so for every animal of yours, there's another one replacing it here. You can see camels, similar to Shangri Llama, replacing the freaky mammals; the woolly tapirs replacing the starts; the short-armed sloths replacing the glyptos; the long-nosed peccaries, similar to the boar of Gutt's crew, replacing the aardvark; and then the common bisons, similiar to the musk oxen in your universe, replacing the rhinos."

"All right, here we go." Mildred said with determination, running and joining the migration, obviously in the opposite direction, to the dismay of the mammals which started insulting her loudly, but she didn't care: she had a mission to carry out.

Notes

The story period also changed, 15.000 years ago instead of 20,000 years ago (because humans didn't live in North America at this last period yet).

For all those interested in the animal species:

- Manny/Mildred: Columbian mammoth (called "giant mammoth because the word "Columbian" has no sense animal language). It was indeed the biggest land mammal 15,000 years ago.

- Freaky mammal (Macrauchenia, called that in the end credits): replaced with Western camel (called just "camel" because the word "Western" has no sense, too).

- Start (Palaeotherium, called that in the end credits): replaced with Vero tapir (called "woolly tapir" because it is named after Vero Beach, in Florida, so it would have no sense, and since it was the northernmost tapir species, it makes sense that it was likely woolliest one).

- Glypto (Glyptodon, called that in the end credits): replaced with Harlan's ground sloth (called "short-armed sloth" because it is named after the paleontologist Richard Harlan , so it would have no sense, and since it had shorter arms than the other sloth species' ones, I chose that name).

- Rhino (Brontotherium and Embolotherium, called that in the end credits): replaced with Ancient bison (called "common bison" because "Ancient" has no sense and it was the most common bison species at that time).

I thought since they were transported in an universe that was very (but not totally) realistic, the species had to be realistic, too, so I replaced the ones of the movie with others which really lived in parts of North America covered by ice 15,000 ago. I hope you like what I did.

This is the first chapter, I hope you enjoyed it!

So Manny is now a female, named Mildred, but what about Sid and Diego? Will they be different, too? Stay tuned to find out!

I really want to know what you think, and I'm open to suggestions, so please review.