In the early morning sunlight, a bubbly pegasus walked along the sidewalk, holding a wooden basket in her mouth. She was on her way to pick up a loaf of bread for a picnic she and her friends had planned for later that afternoon. She considered flying the rest of the way, making short time and arriving at the bakery in a matter of minutes, but that would upset or spill the other ingredients in the basket. She needed to go the rest of the way on hoof.
Derpy passed by a familiar face, a unicorn with a diamond cutie mark. The two were cousins, and about the same age.
“Hiya, Derpy!” this mare said, “What’ve you got there?”
Derpy set her basket down, stopping to reply.
“I have a jar of mayo, a tomato or two, lettuce... Carrot Top, Lyra and I are having a picnic on the green later. What about you, Sparkler?”
“I’m on my way to check out some books on trigonometry. I have a test on Monday, and I need to study.”
“You’re a junior this year?”
“Senior.”
“You’re a senior and you’re only taking trig?” asked Derpy with a cocked head. “I graduated last year, and everypony in my calculus class was a senior.”
“Yeah, but you’re, like, freakishly good at that stuff,” Sparkler said, “I honestly don’t know how you got so good at some of those things...”
“I remember random things,” said Derpy, “Like, really random things.”
“But you almost didn’t pass your tech class. I remember, you came over to my mum’s in tears.”
“I said random things. Anyways... I should be going. Good luck on your test!”
“Have fun with your picnic, cuz!”
****
Derpy was passed by a taxi carriage, pulled by a stallion with a square-cut mane and a grey coat.
“Hey kid, need a lift?” the driver said. Derpy paused, realizing that he was talking to her.
How very odd, she thought, Since when did the taxi driver call out ponies off the street?
“Erm... I don’t have a lot of spare bits. Sorry,” she replied, turning to leave.
“C’mon, it’s a free ride.”
“Free?” she repeated. As unusual as it was, she had been walking all day, and the chance to rest to reach the bakers would save her time and energy. She was happy to seize this opportunity.
“Free of charge.” said the driver. “Come on in.”
Derpy went to get into the taxi, throwing open the door and placing her basket carefully inside.
“I wouldn’t do that!” called out a sharp voice from behind her. Derpy turned her head, one eye sticking on the taxi while the other did as she wanted, and looked at the stallion. Her eyes did that occasionally.
“Who are you?” she called over across the street, focusing on the stallion. He was a bit tall, blue, and had his mane cut very short. Stranger still was his choice in clothing: he wore a green jumper underneath a leather coat.
“Doesn’t matter," the stallion nervously said, "just don’t get on that taxi, trust me.”
Derpy shook her head. It was a free ride; there was no way she was passing this offer up. She climbed in, and closed the door behind her as the stallion hung his head.
“Wheaty’s Bakery, please,” she said to the cart-puller.
****
About ten minutes into the trip, it was quite clear that the driver was not bringing her to the bakery. The taxi had left Ponyville in the opposite direction of the baker’s, heading off towards the north.
“Hey!” shouted Derpy, rocking the cabin, “What gives? I asked you to take me to the bakery!”
There was no response from the driver. Derpy was now in a state of panic. It was an abduction of some kind... where were they taking her, and what did they want?
Derpy tried reaching out and tugging at the driver’s reins, where they connected to the cabin. As soon as she touched one of them, a blue bolt of electricity zapped out at her, striking her hoof where she touched the rope.
“Yeouch!” Derpy shouted, falling backwards as her eyes bulged and rolled about in opposite directions. That had hurt.
“Look out!” shouted a voice. From alongside the carriage came the blue stallion in the jacket, galloping alongside the driver. For the first time, Derpy could see his cutie mark: an hourglass.
The driver glanced over, his head swiveling at an odd angle while the body continued running. He growled at the blue stallion, but only moments before this strange pony tackled him to the ground, pounding at something on the neck.
The carriage skidded to a halt and crashed onto its side, as the basket flipped up into the air and landed on Derpy’s upside down belly on the door of the carriage. She popped the top open, expecting the glass jar to be broken. It wasn’t.
The blue pony poked his head up and over the other door, looking down into the crashed carriage at Derpy. He had an extremely short brown mane that barely grew past his ears, and didn’t go down any farther than the back of his head in the back.
“Hold on a sec, I’ll have you out,” he said, ducking and picking a small metal device out of his jacket. He held one end up to the lock, and a thin blue light glowed through the keyhole, opening it up.
Derpy crawled out through the door with the assistance of this strange pony, standing over the wreck of the carriage. She floated down onto the soil on the bank of the carriage path, setting her basket down and moving over to the dead driver with a wall-eyed stare.
“You alright?” the stallion asked.
“Yeah...”
“I told you not to get onto that carriage,” he said, furrowing his brow. He kicked the detached head of the driver, and Derpy could see a tangle of wires coming out of the neck. She stared at it, wide-eyed and speechless.
“What... was that thing?” Derpy asked, her mouth agape. The stallion countered over, picking up the head in one of his front hooves and holding it aloft
“It’s a drone of sorts... a cybernetic creature controlled by remote from someplace far away,” he said, looking into the cold eyes of the robot’s head and grinning.
“They’ve been making fake carriages, taking a bunch of ponies to somewhere secret, there to do who knows what. I’m out to stop them before anypony gets hurt... but nevermind me. You need to get out of here. Go off to your picnic or whatever you ponies do.”
He turned to leave, walking off with just the cybernetic head in the direction of a tall cluster of trees and bushes on the edge of the forest. Derpy stood still for a minute, and began to follow after him curiously.
“Sir... who are you?”
“Listen,” he said, stopping on the edge of the forest and wheeling about to face Derpy.
“This is very dangerous business, and anypony getting involved with this is liable to get killed. For your sake and your safety, don’t mention this to anyone. Don’t come looking for me, either.”
With that, he disappeared into the bushes, leaving a bewildered Derpy in his wake. He didn’t stay gone for long however, as he poked his head back out a moment later, face to face with the wall-eyed mare.
"What’s your name?”
“Derpy,” answered Derpy honestly, “Derpy Hooves.”
“Pleasure meeting you Derpy. I'm the Doctor by the way...."
There was a flash of light from within the forest, and what sounded like weapons fire and crackling. The Doctor suddenly had maniacal grin spread across his face.
"Run for your life!" he exclaimed, disappearing into the forest amid the sounds of electric sizzling and bangs.
Derpy hastily made her way down the bank and back onto the road to Ponyville. She didn’t know where anypony would want to go in the bushes on the edge of the woods, or what those weird sounds and lights were. She could still hear them in the background, and then the Doctor yelled something. There were pops and cracks, and a thin line of smoke trailed up from within the trees, then all was silent.
She heard a thumping sound, and from the woods came a rhythmic humming.
VWORP! VWORP! VWORP!