DERPA

by CrimsonCowboy

Epilogue: Yo, Something still seems to be happening...

These memchrystals were found years later, with a book next to them indicating a number of Chaos Magic based spells that were, upon review of the memchrystals, elected upon not to be investigated.

Four engineering students were suggested in the title graphic: A female gryphon, Tami Owlson, a male unicorn, Java Stout, a female earth pony, Quantum Shift, and a female changeling, Twefy 'fi Oson. The title card faded to black.

-----

"OK, camera is up. You guys ready?" Java Stout enters the shot. The four are assembled once again in the basement, in front of the pachinko machine.

The pachinko machine has been modified. Many of it's paddles, bumpers, and lights have been removed. A few simple plastic pathways have been installed. The backing graphics have been removed, and replaced with runes suggestive of chaos magic.

Oson steps forward. "We are investigating the Temporal Mechanics spell Discord has provided us. As we do not know how time travel works, we have set up a simple test. We will set up one ball bearing to fall through this pathway. This will, in turn, trigger a rune which will send a signal back in time, which in turn will cause the circuits in the pachinko machine to move this paddle in the past, preventing the ball bearing from falling through the sensor."

"If time travel is possible, then the circuits will flip and prevent the ball bearing from falling down."

"If time travel is impossible, then the circuits will not flip, and the ball bearing will be collected in the bottom of the pachinko machine."

"We've already confirmed the pachinko machine has negligible residual chaos flux, so the spells currently active on it are, with high probablity, the only variables we have to be concerned with."

Quantum Shift nods. "Let's fire this sucker up." She flicks the switch on the machine's backside. A ball bearing falls from the uppermost portions to it's lowermost portions.

A minute passes.

"I guess time travel really isn't possible."

"That's amazing, it worked!"

"I'm kinda bummed out, dudes. It'd be pretty sweet if we could go back and tell ourselves about the past."

"Oh my goodness, there are so many things I want to tell my past self! We could avoid so many conflicts with this spellcraft! We could prevent the griffon's economic collapse, we could prevent the Invasion..."

"I guess it's for the best. Like, gambling as an industry would probably fall apart if time travel worked."

"Hey, should those runes be glowing so brightly?"

"Hey, should it be making a whining noise?"

The modified pachinko machine explodes, violently.

-----
One review of records later....
-----

Quantum Shift rubs her forehead. "OK, why did we think it was a good idea to set up the machine with a paradox as a test? I'd like to think we're smarter than that but I'm getting pretty concerned we're not."

Oson is applying antiseptic fluid to a gash on Tami's forehead with a cloth. Tami hisses back from the sting. Oson frowns, not desiring at all to cause any pain, but knows she has to keep cleaning the cut. Tami speaks, "We had to be sure it wasn't just a rouge spell effect. All the other tests could've just been magic flipping it to a state that looked like we sent something back in time, or hiding it when we sent it forward. OW, damn, not so hard, Oson."

Java Stout is applying a technically antiseptic fluid to his insides. "And we figured something was up when we tried sending a radio signal back in time, and kept getting that dejavuy sense of extreme creepiness before we could even send a message."

Oson is applying gauze to Tami's head. "Then there was the graphing calculator program that was supposed to iterate a fractal pattern, sending back the iteration to it's earlier state to iterate forward."

Tami nods. "It was really creepy that "Ascension" was left on it's screen."

Oson shakes her head. "I'd say I'm more creepped out the logic circuits vanished. Just burned right of the chips. If I hadn't smelled burning plastic, we'd never have opened it up to see."

Quantum finishes rubbing her forehead. "OK. So time magic exists, and we are all in agreement we don't want to fuck around with it?"

A resounding cry of 'yes' fills the room.

She turns back to the book Discord had left them, '101 Handy Chaos Spells!', and flips to the next chapter. "Oh, well, this looks promising. Hey, Java, catch." She picks up a screwdriver and tosses it at Java, who barely catches it with his magic. "Get the mirror off the bathroom wall and bring it down here. We're building a dimensporter."

Java frowns. "Can't we just do it in there, it's really big for a mirr-"

He's cut off. Quantum is pointing her forehoof at him. "No chaos magic in the bathroom. Never again." Java Stout tenses, his eyes widening as if a repressed memory suddenly came flooding back. Carrying the screwdriver, he nods, and heads upstairs to the bathroom.

-----

"Hey, the soup's nearly ready! I got some of yesterday's bread out and toasting. Are you still down there, guys?"

Tami rubs her head underneath the bandage. "For fuck's sake, Java... YEAH! We're still down here! Did you fuckin' see us walking upstairs, through the damn kitchen?!"

Java trots down the stairwell. "I dunno. How's the dimensporter going?"

The dimensporter is built around the large bathroom mirror they have. It's a curious contraption, with an incredible amount of wires, breadboard circuits, piezoelectric crystals ("OK, so, it's kinda weird, but those hippies have like, the best quartz crystals I've ever seen. Just play along with their little song and dance, we can probably get a good deal from these crazy fuckers."), and a few protractors glued to a couple of lasers serving as alignment devices. Magic runes fill the entirety of the back of the mirror, painted on with gold-infused hoof-polish.

Oson is finishing soldering the power supply for the circuits together. She blows on it for a moment, and then plugs it into the machine and the mains power for the house. Blinkly lights blink, the mirror shimmers with magic, and Oson nods. "We should be good to go for our first test, assuming... Java! What are you doing?!"

Java has marched through the mirror. In terror, Oson chases after him. In terror, Tami chases after her. In annoyance, Quantum grasps the camera and chases the lot of them, muttering under her breath, "Bloody idiots..."

-----

Java is looking about their basement. "It's, uh, exactly the same, dudes. I think it's busted."

Tami growls. "For fucks sake! We've been at this for hours... Let's just get some food and look over our shit later..."

The quartet head upstairs. Java pours himself a mixture of vodka and water, and the rest begin serving themselves his tomato and eggplant soup and slices of toasted bread. From the upturned noses, something seems to smell off about the recipe.

Tami quickly drinks a large portion of the broth after she served herself, and retrieves a second helping right away. Quantum dips some of the toasted bread into the soup, and contemplates the strange flavors. Oson takes a single spoonful into her mouth and tries to make sense of the taste...

Oson states, "Something seems... odd about this soup."

Java raises an eyebrow. "Really? I followed the recipe exactly..." He lifts up the cookbook he used in his magic and shows them the recipe. It is at this point that Tami vomits. Quantum shortly follows suit, but with less material in her stomach, does not achieve the spread or distance that Tami did.

"Woah, dudes, it can't be that bad."

Oson is shivering in fear. "Ja... Java.... look... at the recipe..."

Java tilts his head in confusion and flips the cookbook around. He tilts his head the other way. "Huh. That's weird. All the text is backwards. Reversed? Mirrored? Whatever."

Tami pauses her projectile vomiting. She looks up at the clock ticking counterclockwise, it's digits in clearly the wrong order. She stares at the cookbook, able to read the strangely mirrored font with some effort. '.pous tnalpgge dna otamot' She vomits again, and screams, "Why is it mirrored?!"

Java looks at the recipe himself. "Huh, I guess the dimensporter worked, and sent us to a mirror dimension. Woah. I put a lot of spices into this. If they're all mirrored, that means all the chiralities have flipped on the individual molecules and..."

Tami once again vomits loudly. Oson moves over to rub her back. "Oh yeah, some of them are probably pretty toxic right now. Oh, man, and all the proteins are going to have the wrong-hoofedness too. We really can't stay here without our own foodstuffs. I, uh, think we should, um, head back to the basement."

The three females head down with all due haste, but Java takes the bottle of vodka he had been drinking from in his magic before heading down himself. "I'm sure they won't mind if I took this. After all, ethanol is non-chiral..."

He pauses. He grabs a piece of paper and scribbles out a note, leaving it on the table, then continues downstairs to the dimensporter.

-----

Tami has returned upstairs and is chugging a bottle of a bismuth based stomach settler. Quantum is drinking a large glass of water. "That sucked."

Tami belches, and consumes a glass of water herself. "We're back in our normal dimension, right? I don't want to suddenly find out I just drank a poison."

Oson looks at the clock. The hands are moving clockwise. She checks some of the cookbooks Java owns. The text is normal. She takes a sip of the soup. "Tomato and eggplant. Tastes delicious." Java pumps his hoof in pride. "I'm pretty sure we're back home."

Java raises the bottle of reversed vodka - or akdov - in his hoof. "Let's celebrate with a drink!" He moves to where he had his own bottle and the various shot glasses and mixers that'd go into a proper mixed drink. He pauses. Something is missing. "Wait a second..."

His eyes shoot towards the table. On it rests a message. It's mirrored. He flips the thin paper around and holds it up to the light, reading the message through it. "I borrowed your booze. Sorry about the puke. Stout."

He slams the bottle of akdov down on the counter top. "That son of a bitch stole my booze!"

Oson taps her hoof against her chin. "Are you sure that's not your own vodka, just mirrored? I'm wondering if we really traveled between dimensions..."

Java shakes his head. "No, I left a different message. 'Hey, I'm sorry about the puke. Borrowing your booze. Java.'"

Oson looks around the table's other side and sighs. She moves to get the mop. "This floor isn't going to clean itself..."

Quantum raises a hoof. "Wait, Oson, I think there was another spell we could try."

-----

Tami would be the first to admit that Oson looked extremely cute in a maid's outfit. In fact, she did so. "You look really cute, Oson."

"Oh, O'm Always pleased to be at 'ya service, gov'nress!", she responds with a mid-air curtsy.

Tami scrunches her beak up, determined not to let the adorableness of the changeling before her get to her. She begins to hover a few feet in the air, her wings gently flapping, as she tries to scrub... something off of the ceiling. "We should've known a cleaning spell from Discord would've... not worked as it should've."

Oson, meanwhile, has begun buzzing past the cabinets with a rag full of sanitizing deep cleanser. They looked better after each pass, but she was clearly settling for less than perfect, having seen them when she moved in. "Well, at least we were out of the main effect zone."

Java trots down from upstairs. "Quant's in the shower. I think she's done puking. She asked me to go to Screwdrivers and buy their entire stock of hydrogen peroxide. Is it ok if I ditch you guys for a few?"

Tami screws up her face. "The way she smelt? Get going. And bring back some more bleach. I don't think this shit up here is to be trusted. Celest, I think I might need a chisel..."

Java heads for the door, and pauses. "Wait a second. If I'm thinking like I think I'm thinking..." He levitates up the sheet of metal they had painted the most recent spell onto, and rushes down stairs.

Tami shouts at him, "What the fuck are you doing?!" She descends to the floor, and heads towards the basement. As she reaches the door, the sound of the dimensporter fades, and Java walks triumphantly back upstairs.

He enters the kitchen, and begins to touch his horn to the runes on the metal plate. Oson screams out, "Oh, nonono, TAKE COVER!" She rushes out of the room.

Tami moves to tackle Java, before, in a flash of light... the entire kitchen is spontaneously spotlessly spicly-and-spanly clean.

She stops, stunned. "Wha.... what the fuck?"

Java smirks. "I tossed our runed plate through the dimensporter. They tossed back theirs. It's reversed. This spell is the reverse of Discord's cleaning spell. Pretty clever, don't you think?"

Oson pokes her head through the doorway. She moves to look at the runes. "Magic... doesn't work that way. These runes don't even make sense..."

Java crosses his forehooves and closes his eyes. With a nod, he says "Chaos magic."

Tami rubs her head. "Fine. Just, fine. Get your butt to Screwdrivers, pick up the H2O2, and Oson will make a new lunch. Cause I know how much you all love my cooking." She throws her head in a sarcastic fashion.

Java raises a hoof. "Metal fires are not normally considered a part of gourmet cooking..."

He is summarily thrown out the door of their house.

Oson meanwhile has begun pulling out items to make a new meal. Tami walks up to her and places her talons on Oson's back. "Just reheat some of the old chili. Knowing him, he's going to be there for at least a pint or two, and Quants..."

A disgusting retching noise is heard from upstairs. "How did it get into my sinuses?! ARGH!"

"Is busy. Come on, I don't want to see you in that maid uniform any longer."

Oson drops her head. "I thought you said I look cute..."

Tami picks up Oson, who eeps. Tami brings her head closer to Osons. "Those statements are..." She plants a kiss on her head. "Not mutually exclusive."

Oson turns her head away, a deep blush on her chitin. "I... love it when you talk nerdy to me."

They head for the basement, away from the sounds of smelly misery coming from the upstairs bathroom. "Why me, damnit?! Argh, Sombra's ass, I'm going to be smelling this all week!"

-----

Oson, Tami, and Java are enjoying the reheated chili. Quantum enters the kitchen, her coat, tail and mane bleached white. There are cotton wads stuffed into her nostrils. She looks around the room, slightly amazed at it's cleanliness. Java looks up and asks, "Um, your nose OK, Quants?"

She shakes her head. "I blew it so hard I got a blood nose. I think I got most of whatever... that stuff was out of it. Nice job on the kitchen, though, guys."

Java chuckles, and pulls up the runed plate. Quantum recoils in horror. He taps it a few times, "I sent it through the dimensporter! And they sent theirs back! The spell is totally reversed."

Quantum is still backing away. "I don't practice outside of runic magic, but I know it doesn't work that way."

"Chaos magic."

She pauses. "You know, that's stupid enough to work. I think, though, I'm done with this today. We've got all of tomorrow before classes start again on Monday to look over that spell book." She walks over to the trash bin and pops the cotton balls out of her nostrils. Waiting a moment, to acertain the blood flow has stopped, she sits at the table. "Aren't these the left overs from last week?"

"I, uh, didn't have much time to make something new..."

Java lifts a spoon and taps his chin, oblivious that he's getting chili over it. "Really? I had like, at least five pints over there while they got the rest of the peroxide stock up from their basement... Then I had to borrow a cart to carry it all back, and return it... Have another pint, a chat with Clyde... So that'd be at least an hour."

"I needed her help down in the basement! I was, I was looking at another one of the spells!"

Quantum taps her chin. "I did hear you yelling a bit ago. I meant to ask, are you ok, but now I'm remembering yesterday. You two were screwing down there, weren't you?

"I'm guessing by your stunned faces you were. I don't really care, you know, right? Frankly, my biggest concern right now is if the smell of blood is enough to over power what's still wedged up in my sinuses. Seriously, I can't place what the fuck it is, but damn, I don't like it." Quantum reaches for the pepper and pours an overly generous quantity onto her chili.

Java is wiping his face with a napkin. "Yeah, me neither. Seriously, I figured you two were a couple for like, the whole semester. Why are you so weirded out by it now? Did you just figure out..."

Quantum pops the cap off the pepper shaker and pours some on her bread. Between bites, she states, "I think they just realized yesterday. I don't care. I've had more shit happen to me in the past forty eight hours for me to even start to worry about this."

Java points his spoon. "It's kinda tsundere, don't you think?"

Quantum looks at him. "It's six o'clock. The sun is right there." She points in a slightly western direction.

Java shakes his head. "No, no, tsundere. Like, it's angry & cute. It's like, a super popular trope in those manga's I got. Cute filly, acts like she doesn't like the dude with a vengeance, but also act's like she likes the dude. Normally it's in one character, but here, Tami's the tsun, Oson's the dere. Or the other way around. I don't remember."

Quantum shakes her head. "I don't know, I've never read any of those. I don't get why you like those stupid foreign comics."

Java smirks and raises an eyebrow. "Says the mare who built a super heroine styled flight suit."

Quantum starts to point at him, and then chuckles. "Got me there. Anyway, I'm done. I'm gonna chill with some Rocket Battles. You game, Java?"

Java plinks his spoon into his own empty bowl. "You bet! Hey, wait a second... They, uh, haven't moved."

Tami and Oson have, indeed, not moved. A fierce blush fills both of their faces. Quantum sighs. "For fucks sake."

Quantum picks Oson up, and shoves her into Tami's lap. She pushes Oson's bowl of chili over. "I need to reiterate, we don't care. Just don't start any drama... well, more drama than usual around this place." She places her dishes in the sink, and joins Java in walking into the living room.

Java wiggles his eyebrows. "So... you want to start some drama with me?"

"You're a an irritating alcoholic who has inadvertently caused me physical harm, is ten years my senior, and didn't even realize he graduated so fiscal prospects are kinda right out. You're a great friend, Java, and a great cook, but no. I will defenestrate you if you ever ask again."

Java chuckles. "Woah, harsh. Yeah, it's cool. You're not really my type either."

The sound of the GameStation booting up and the playful banter of two friends trying to digitally murder each other flows from the living room. Tami and Oson still haven't moved.

"They thought that... All semester?"

"I.. guess so? You've always been there for me..."

"sigh I guess I have... Birds of a feather..."

"Swarm together."

Tami chuckles and rests her head on Oson. "Two weirdos in a crazy, mixed up pony world." She picks up a spoonful of chili and offers it to Oson. "So, where do you want to go for a first date? Cause I guess we're like, a couple now..."

"There's a monster-train rally in a few days..."

"Woah, the one with Trainzilla?"

"The one with the mark eight kinksprings powering it's clawsinators. Yeah. I think they're going to try to see if it can really crush through a boiler, and it's going to be running at full steam at the time."

Tami kisses Oson on the head and hugs her tightly. "Fuck yeah."

They proceed to feed each other, making cute noises for a few minutes, before Oson pauses. She points at the camera. Tami sighs, picks up and places Oson off to her side, and stomps into the living room. "WHY THE FUCK DID YOU EVEN TURN THE CAMERA ON?!"

Quantum adds to the shouting. "You had the camera on? What the fuck, Java?"

Oson reaches towards the camera and flicks it off.

-----

The video cuts out.
Title credits roll:
These videos are a warning. While we can pull order from chaos, it is a difficult and confusing process. We have deemed it safer to not promulgate this data, and we have considered ourselves clever people. If you are reviewing this data, than we hope you are in a wiser time, one where it can be safely utilized. If these experiments do not frighten you as they did us, then either you have advanced your society to a point where you can handle this, or you are about to make a horrible mistake. Regardless, we wish you luck, and hope you have a nice time.

Our names were Java Stout, Tami Owlson, Twefy 'fi Oson, and Quantum Shift.

We hope you are having a good day. It is all we can realistically wish for you.

Author's Note:

I can think of a few other tests, but, I'm pretty ok with this. I can try a few more ideas with chaos magic, cause it's kinda easy for me to write science fantasy. But unless more events related to these nerds are desired, I'll let them be, for now... Hope you had fun!

Edit: Wow, I had a lot of typos in this one...

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

monster-train rally

All. My. Want.

Overall, I found this story dense, meandering, and a quite accurate representation of college. Would read again.

[CrimsonCowboy]

7728495
I'm really glad to hear that it sounds an awful lot like college. My own life got a lot weirder after going to college - I guess I'm still there, I'm not a very good student - but if we had access to strange magic like this, you damn well know we would've got up to shenanigans.

Like, I emptied our house with capsaicin by cooking peppers wrong, I melted a coffee pot, we melted part of a ceramic plate in a microwave oven, we built a snow statue that made the school eliminate it's site in favor of a rock garden it was so ugly, we have found so many wonderful bits of technology and so forth in the dumpsters - bloody hell, I found a five minute VHS tape about 'FAA large bird impact test', and we still get chuckles watching it. I've help build trebuchets and I've given my dead fish viking/pizza-box-tower funerals.

Then get in touch with the right professors, and you get access to liquid nitrogen at like, .7$/L. Bloody. Hell. And then there's the college radio station, where they let any bewildered freshman on the air. Gracious mine, that's how I found some of the most amazing weird stuff I like - I really lucked out with finding Ayreon, and the Protomen.

Oh gods above and below, don't even start with what we've tried with "What can we roll down the street in this parade?" That parade didn't even have floats till we pirated it two years in a row. Literally. We dressed up as pirates and jumped in somewhere.

I can't say this story was at all inspired by real-life events, because of magic and chaos and ponies. BUT, if I were in this world, it'd probably play out like this.

[CrimsonCowboy]

7932804
Oh dear goodness, yes. I need an editor something awful, and I've had that very typo pointed out in other things I've written because I didn't even realize I was doing it. I'd be happy to go back and fix it sometime soon.