//------------------------------// // Part 6: The Plan // Story: Saving Derpy Whooves // by Junster00741 //------------------------------// When I woke up the following morning, I wasn’t a hundred percent but I was doing far better than last night. My head was throbbing and my eyes were dry but I was a bit more cheerful to everypony this morning. During breakfast I was able to chat for a little to everyone before quietly finishing my hash browns at the end. We had a simple egg omelet with, as you already know, hash browns and some water to wash down with. I practically gobbled down my food since last night left me a bit famished. Once breakfast was over with, we chatted a little more until Twilight was told of her duties for the day. She seemed lucky as today she was only told to handle the problem she’s currently assisting in. It was actually a surprise to hear it because we assumed only Twilight knew about this but when you think about it she has to inform others instead of Spike who seemed to be absent right now. When I think about it, I haven’t seen him all day nor have I seen him during breakfast. Where is the little guy? “Hey Twilight?” I called out as I made my way over to her, “Where’s Spike, I haven’t seen him at all since I came in yesterday.” Everyone turned to Twilight as the realization hit them that the little dragon assistant was apparently missing right now. “He’s on another Dragon Quest,” explained Twilight, “he actually left a week ago but he never said when he’ll come back. The only thing he said was that it was important and left in a hurry…” This didn’t sound promising as we all exchanged concerned faces to one another before turning back to Twilight, “I’m sure he’ll be fine,” reassured Fluttershy, “he has survived all our adventures so I’m sure another Dragon Quest is a cake walk at this point.” Twilight smiled a little, “You’re right,” she said with more confidence, “I should have more faith in my number one assistant.” “Slash son.” I added abruptly, making Twilight roll her eyes and laugh. “Dragons are a force to be reckon with,” said Doctor Whooves, “though there is so little on them just the sight of them is all that is needed to know that they mean business.” He shuttered a little as he pictured a full grown dragon for a moment, “Ahem,” he said next as he cleared mind, “now that that’s out of the way. What are we to do for the time being?” he wondered, “From what Derpy has told me we only have an hour until noon but even then we never set a pacific time to meet nor have we established a meeting room.” “We have our meetings in the table room,” said Twilight, “the table room is in the center of this castle and it’s on the first floor. We always gather there when the map summons us but it also serves as a meeting room too.” “Hmm…I see,” Said Doctor Whooves with curiosity, “and how does such a place ‘summon’ you?” he wondered with emphasis on summon. Twilight shrugged her shoulders, “It just does,” she said simply, “it is powered by the Elements of Harmony after all.” “Ah, the Elements of Harmony.” Said Doctor Whooves with some hesitance, “I forget that you wield the strongest of them, Magic and Miss Fluttershy here wields Kindness. Truly spectacular beings you two are and same goes to the other element wielders…” “Is there anything you would like to know about with the Elements?” questioned Twilight, making Doctor Whoove’s ears twitch at the words as it seemed to be music to them. “Oh you have no idea how much of a delight that would be!” replied Doctor Whooves as he pulled out a note pad and quill from thin air. “Should we stop them?” I wondered as Fluttershy, Derpy and I just watched and listened on the sidelines. All I got from Fluttershy was a shrug while Derpy seemed to be interested too on what Twilight had to say. This actually led to Twilight talking about the Elements of Harmony for the whole hour which was pretty convenient. I actually zoned out after ten minutes so I missed out on a lot, Fluttershy was the one to snap me out of it but only at the end as it was time to make our way to the meeting room. This didn’t take long at all as Twilight simply teleported us to the place with her magic. This beat the walking down of the stairs since we would’ve taken forever if Twilight wasn’t so fond of her teleportation spell. I’ve only seen the meeting room once and it was when Twilight was looking for a room to teach me in two years ago. This room would’ve been it if Twilight wasn’t so concerned on the table acting up for some strange reason if we actually went through with it. This sadly led to Twilight having a mild panic attack where she assumed the worst possible scenarios about anything her mind could think of. One of them being that the table would suddenly spring up and turn into a crystal golem that would ravaged the lands because we thought using the room as a place for me to learn was a good idea. Talk about bad anxiety… As we all took our seats we ended up noticing the shortage of seats, this was quickly handled as Twilight conjured up some chairs with her magic and had us sit. All that was left to do now is wait and luckily not for long. Thirty minutes in Rarity came up, she was greeted with warm welcomes and introduction to Doctor Whooves. The same went for the rest who showed up together not too long after Rarity. Once things were settled, and everypony was seated Twilight addressed the problem. “As you already know,” Twilight began with a formal tone, “our friend Derpy here is going through a tough time right now. For some strange reason everyone in Ponyville hates her yet we here don’t.” she said with a bit of suspicion, “I don’t know if any of you noticed but all of us, including my royal guards, don’t seemed to be irritated by Derpy.” She pointed out, “Why this is how it is I don’t know, but what I do know is it’s our duty to help Derpy regain her friendship with the citizens of Ponyville.” “It won’t be an easy task,” proclaimed Applejack, “like Twilight said everyone but us and the guard ponies hate Derpy.” “That’s why we’re all here,” said Pinkie, “to help out!” “But exactly how?” questioned Rarity. “We can’t just go up to them and force them to like Derpy,” I said with a low grumble, “That will for sure go downhill pretty quickly but there’s got to be something we can do!” “Maybe we can ask around and see why everypony hates Derpy so much.” Fluttershy suggested. “That’s too risky for you,” argued Twilight, “from what I can assume everyone will remember you, Cerulean and Derpy from yesterday’s incident and the last thing we need is for more blood to be shed.” “But what about you girls?” questioned Fluttershy, “Surely you won’t have too much trouble asking around about Derpy.” “Maybe but what if they get mad?” said Rainbow, “If we fight them then it’ll just add more stress into the situation we’re in.” “How about we ask them but not in person.” Suggested Doctor Whooves, making us all turn to him in confusion since what he said didn’t make the slightest bit of sense to us, “What if instead of us going to each house asking about Derpy, we send them a letter that they’ll open and inside is a request from Princess Twilight asking about what the citizens think of Derpy and what she can do to improve the situation.” We all gave it a moment’s thought before turning to Twilight for her answer, “That’s not a bad idea,” she said with an approving tone, “but where exactly are we going to get the paper?” “Is that really the only problem we have for that?” I questioned with a bit of disappoint, “Why don’t we just take some paper from the news press ponies, I’m sure they have a ton of extra paper lying around.” “Stealing is against the law,” argued Twilight, “you could go to jail for it!” “Not if I don’t get caught.” I argued, “I have stolen stuff before and it’s pretty easy if you know how to do it.” “Surely there must be another way instead of stealing,” said Rarity as she sighed with a bit of annoyance, “Twilight could just ask them for the paper, no one can say no to the Princess right?” “Good point,” I mumbled, feeling a little stupid for my idea now, “that’ll save the trouble all together and once we get the letters out we just have to wait for a reply.” “Actually,” said Twilight, “I can just make copies of one letter and send them all out to everypony in Ponyville.” “Why didn’t you say that before?” wondered Derpy as she looked a little irritated at Twilight. “Sort of slipped my mind,” Twilight admitted sheepishly, “plus I had my mind in other places.” “Is it on that Flash Sentry pony?” wondered Applejack. “N-NO!” Twilight blurted out with a red face, “I haven’t thought of him since I last saw him!” she proclaimed with a shaky voice. “When the last time you saw him?” questioned Pinkie. “…Three days ago.” Said Twilight as she dropped her head onto the table, “Ugh, why me?” she wondered helplessly. “Who’s this Flash Sentry?” I wondered. “A royal guard pony in the Crystal Empire that Twilight likes.” Explained Fluttershy, “She’s had a crush on him for a while but she’s never said a word to him about it.” “I see,” I said with some interest now, “and how long has Twilight known this pony?” “A few years to say the least,” said Rarity, “we’ve tried to get them to go out on multiple occasions but Twilight isn’t exactly the romantic type of pony.” “You don’t say…” I mumbled as I looked over to Twilight who still had her red face on the table, “Well aside from failed attempts on love, let’s get this thing done with and save Derpy!” “Yeah!” shouted everypony while Twilight gave a weak and pathetic, “Yeah…” We brought out the quill and paper and gave it to Twilight, next she wrote out a request to the citizens of Ponyville. Once she was done, with a simple spark of her horn the written paper doubled, then tripled, and then quadrupled and so on until there was enough for everypony in Ponyville. Next Twilight called out a few of her guards and ordered them to take all the letters to each pony in town. Lastly the guards bowed and did as told, all taking a certain amount of letters before rushing out to deliver them. “So now what?” wondered Rainbow as she looked around the now quiet castle, “Do we just wait?” “I guess so…” replied Twilight, “That’s all we can really.” “How long do you think it’ll take?” I wondered. “Maybe half the day?” said Twilight, “And we only spent about an hour of thinking and doing the plan Doctor Whooves came up with.” We all groaned at the next task now, waiting. “Well is any pony up for a nap?” suggested Applejack, “We got a lot of time to kill and I suppose a nap could shed an hour or two off.” Some shrugged at the idea while Rainbow Dash and I were all in for it, “If there’s one thing I’m good at,” said Rainbow Dash, “is napping!” “Same here.” I added, “I used to nap all the time back in my place so this is going to be easy!” “But what if…” mumbled Fluttershy, “What if we’re not tired…?” There was a moment of silence, “How about a walk?” suggested Twilight, “To the Castle of the Two Sisters?” “The what?” I questioned with confusion, “Where’s that at?” “Have I never talk about that place before?” said Fluttershy awkwardly, “Maybe it must’ve slipped my mind…” “Eh don’t worry about it,” I argued as I brought Fluttershy over to my side, “I’m fine with whatever anyone chooses.” “So?” wondered Pinkie, “Is it nappy time or walk to memory lane?” Most of us went with the second option and so our new task for the time being was to visit the Castle of The Two Sisters. I’ve never been there nor have I heard about it for the whole two years that I’ve lived here. Part of me was a little hesitant on going but it’s not like I could’ve done something better so I had no choice really.