//------------------------------// // A Quiet Day // Story: The Galactic Adventures of Derpy and Twilight // by PenileCorrectionSurgery //------------------------------// It was a normal day in the peaceful land of Equestria, there were no wars, no evil omnipotent supervillains attempting world domination or to enslave all of ponykind. Everyone was having a lovely day and the universe probably wasn’t at risk from total destruction from a force beyond comprehension and scale. All the usual ponies could be seen out and about in the quaint backwater town of ponyville: a familiar butter yellow pegasus was being mentally abused by a small furry mammal, a mint green unicorn was embarrassing her friend by being herself. And of course an orange earth pony with a wide brimmed Stetson was locked in a duel across time and space with a creature made entirely from teeth and guns… wait, what? Anyway, it was about as normal as is possible, for most ponies, which inevitably meant that a particular cross-eyed mare was being her usual weird self. Derpy Hooves rocketed through ponyville as fast as an enraged dinosaur-eagle, a determined frown crossing her muzzle and her ears flat against her head, She was on a mission and nothing would slow her down. Except any of the huge array of dangerous animals from the everfree who seemed to wander into town at least once a fortnight, but assuming that there were no ursa majors or manticores or cockatrices, nothing would slow her down. “Oh, Hey Derpy. What’s the ru-” The grey mare didn’t catch the rest of the sentence as she blasted through the street, overturning an ingeniously drab looking stall selling tiny flowers in brightly coloured boxes that ponies felt inclined to buy, for some reason. She ignored the offensive curses and threats of the owner and continued on her way without even blinking. Suddenly she got an image of a dancing squirrel stuck in her head. Why? why now? She thought, shaking the image from her mind. Finally, her destination was in sight. THUD! “Spiiike, I think I heard somepony at the door.” Twilight briefly looked up from her desk and turned around to face the dragon. “SPIKE!” Little did she know that at that very moment, her beloved pet/son/little brother/friend/slave was plotting her demise. In the guise of sleep, the thing that appeared to be a dragon built upon the plans he had been constructing for over a year now. The sheer number of the network of maps and flowcharts in his mind were enough to drive anything with the will power of up to a demigod insane. Just as he was placing the final piece into a complex tree of possible results for an action, the voice he had grown to despise so much disrupted his concentration and the entire chart was lost into the ether. Spike was not happy. “Yeah yeah, I’m going, jeez.” Spike hauled himself from his basket and trudged down the stairs with the enthusiasm of a ham sandwich to see who was so determined to ruin his carefully laid plans. “Hi Spike!” Derpy exclaimed enthusiastically as soon as the dragon opened the door. “I wanted to make an entrance, but that door is hard.” “Right.” Spike drawled, hardly even listening. “Come in, through this nice open door then.” He stepped aside and allowed the pegasus to enter. Derpy’s face was stern, a strange expression when combined with her wall-eyes. Spike was slightly taken aback, the mare was usually so… bubbly, like her cutie mark, but she seemed deadly serious. “I need to speak to Twilight, I think she’s the only one who can help me.” “Uhh, yeah. Of course.” He dragged himself lazily back up the stairs and muffled voices could be heard. Twilight appeared suddenly in a flash of purple and slowly fading white stars. “Hello Derpy, I hear you wanted to speak with me?” “Yes.” There was a noticeable pause before Twilight picked up the conversation “Erm… any particular subject?” “One of the utmost importance, I’ll explain on the way!” Derpy grabbed Twilight’s hoof in hers and shot out of the open door, her expression turning smug for a moment at how important sounding her last sentence was. They then flew up to about roof level and Derpy felt the squirrel returning, creeping in from the side of her vision, attempting to infiltrate her mind with its smooth moves. “NOOOO!” The mare shouted out loud as she lost awareness of the rest of the world. Spike rubbed his eyes once in sleepy confusion, before reality sunk in. He watched as the two ponies shot around the corner. “TWILIGHT!” “Derpy! What in Luna’s name are you doing? Let go of me!” The lavender unicorn grappled with her telekinesis magic but her kidnapper was stronger than she made out to be, gripping Twilight’s wrist with badger-like strength. Without another word, The grey mare angled herself steeply upwards. Twilight’s struggling was slowing her down and she decided the extra height would… discourage her a bit. The unicorn screamed hoarsely as the ground began to pull away with unnerving speed for a usually earth-bound pony, and just as expected she stopped trying to escape and clung on for dear life. “Please, Derpy, Wh-what are you doing this for?” “I’ll explain when we get there.” “Where exactly is ‘there’?” Derpy didn’t reply, she just levelled out gently at a higher altitude and looked down at the scattered town below. She had always admired the view of things from above, being a Buttsdale native, she was more than used to it, but it still invoked a feeling of awe from deep inside her. The pegasus totally blanked the repetitive pleading murmurs of her terrified passenger and faced to the left to see a river winding its way through the Everfree forest and to the sea. The curvature of the planet could be seen around the horizon and the parallax effect of the canterlot mountains was slightly dizzying as they moved at different speeds. Derpy then fixed her eyes (as well as she could) onto the direction she wanted to be going. The blonde maned mare hoisted Twilight up slightly to stop her from slipping and flew over the green ocean known as Everfree. She watched with passive admiration as the trees whizzed by, the horizon quickly retreating. Very much unlike the unicorn she was carrying, who had her eyes tightly squeezed shut, whimpering as she tried to refrain from a full scream. In her delirium, The lavender pony used random spells without thinking, unconsciously uprooting whole swathes of dark trees and swirling them through the air at terrifying speeds. Their leaves tore off in huge lumps and thudded to the forest floor, breaking sizeable holes in the canopy as they plummeted. One particular manticore ended up very confused in the extreme north of the continent, not at all sure how it was instantaneously torn from its hunt and placed in this wasteland. As it was about to roar in frustration, it caught a scent in the wind – food. It turned around and looked up and up and up to an enormous quartz spire rupturing from the frozen earth, with this unusual structure came the unmistakable smell of delicious pony meat. Dinnertime. It thought. Suddenly a large clearing was exposed in the solid covering of trees, with a circular building in the centre, made of shiny metal panelling mixed with the traditional wood and plaster of Equestrian building design. It was as large as an ursa major and featured a tall domed building in the centre. Derpy swooped low and came to a smooth halt just outside the clearing, still masked from the interior by the dense jungle-like forest. She knocked idly on the trunk of a tree as she waited for her passenger to recover from the shock. To her surprise it emitted a low note which sounded as if it had come from a wooden instrument of some description, pipes perhaps. The sound reverberated to the next tree in a long line into the distance, followed by a “ding” from the first tree from which a large sapphire rolled. On it was etched: Take this gem, You won’t have it for long. After a moment, a subdued rumble was barely audible in the distance. Derpy shrugged and looked back to Twilight. She was shaking uncontrollably and was curled up on the ground, still mumbling to herself – she was saying something about the price of watermelons. “Twilight!” Derpy hissed quietly through her teeth. “Get yourself together, we don’t have much time!” The unicorn didn’t even register that anything had been said, continuing her irrelevant ramblings, pupils small and unfocused. WHACK! Derpy hit the lavender mare across the face with a yellowed magazine about 1950s fighter planes. This was strange, as neither fighter planes nor the 1950s had been invented in Equestria at this point. The totally out of place piece of literature did the trick though, bringing Twilight back to the world with a confused splutter. “What in Celes-” The unicorn began, before stopping short and pointing at the latest issue of ‘MIG Mag’ with a hoof “What even is that?” “I have no idea.” Derpy cheerfully replied. “I just found it.” “Fair enough. Besides, where are we? What could be so important that you had to kidnap me?” “I’ve received some intel that the entire multiverse is at risk from a being so powerful, it can destroy a galaxy with its little finger. We have to stop it.” “Righttttt… multiverse, giant super-being, reality destroyed. Ok, What do we do? Is it here?” “No, what would the closest thing to a malevolent god in the entirety of existence be doing here in Equestria? That would be far too easy.” “So where is it then? Who’s even giving you this information?” “Your mentor and I share several friends, she is also aware of this threat.” “That’s impossible, she would have told me. I’m sure whatever this thing is can be stopped with the magic of friendship.” “This thing eats suns like crisps, a magic rainbow beam might not quite be up to scratch.” Twilight frowned at this last statement and thought deeply for a moment. It didn’t shed any light on the situation. She stomped on the floor. “Well what do you suggest then!” she snapped. “I dunno, I was kinda gonna make it up as I went along.” “Well that’s an excellent plan Derpy, what could possibly go wrong?” The unicorn was getting quickly frustrated. “If what you say is true, I’m sure Princess Celestia is more than capable of beating this guy, what with her, Luna, Cadance and now Discord on their side, It’ll be no problem. Now take me back to Ponyville, I’ve had enough of this.” “Celestia can’t get to this creature Twilight. Even I don’t know how far away it is, she’s had to build that thing in there just to get close.” Derpy pointed at the unusual circular complex with her hoof. “Then why don’t we leave her to it? I’m confident that the princess knows what she’s doing.” “She has no idea what she’s doing. My contacts say that-” “Contacts? What do you mean by contacts? How are you finding this stuff out?” Twilight interrupted with a barrage of questions. “It just sort of… turns out that way.” The grey pegasus shrugged casually. “In what way does Celestia have ‘no idea what she’s doing’?” “Her only plan of action now this thing has escaped is to kill it, probably with fire. Not only is it probably invincible, but impossible to catch – it is a giant godlike dimension hopping… thing that we don’t even know what looks like after all.” “You’ve said yourself you don’t have a better plan.” “I’ll find one. I find lots of things, lots of things find me too.” Twilight sighed deeply. “So you want to go and steal whatever’s in there, defeat this creature that’s threatening existence itself, come back home and act like nothing ever happened?” “Sounds about right.” “Right, seeing as I don’t have much choice, lets get on with this. What’s in there?” Derpy grinned “You’ll see soon enough.” “Ok then, how do you suggest we get in?” At a glance it was obvious that the entire area was ridiculously heavily guarded. Derpy looked at the sapphire in her hoof thoughtfully for a second, before tossing it carelessly into the clearing. “Like I said, things tend to find me. And those “things” aren’t usually positive.” Almost as soon as Derpy finished speaking – on cue, even – the forest floor shook and the birds left their roosts with a cacophony of flapping wings. There was a bright light through the canopy and a portion of the clearing burst into flame, followed closely by an ear-splitting roar from above. The cries of one guard could be heard above the others, “DRAGON!!!”