//------------------------------// // Digging Up Trouble: The Adventures of Derpy Hooves // Story: The Time Ponies (Fail to) Take a Vacation // by My name is R //------------------------------// As Derpy flew over the mountains, a thunderstorm blew in from the East, its blinding flashes of light and deafening booms rolling over the hills. The rain battered her face as she flew against the howling winds. But she did not falter. Because she knew that down below her friends were trekking through the blackest of depths to meet her on the far side. Her progress was slow. Her strength began to flag. But then, from the clouds a ship burst forth. “Hello!” she called. “Can you hear me!” Slowly the zeppelin turned its broadside towards her, and she landed roughly on the deck. She looked up to thank the crew, only for the thanks to die in her throat. Surrounding her were a ragged crew of griffins and pegasi. Between them they had several peglegs, eyepatches, and rusty sabers. One stood taller than the rest, holding a rope in his talons with a black hat emblazoned with the skull and crossbones. “Look here boys! We got ourselves another one!” Derpy took to the air, but the captain’s lasso caught her around the barrel. Even so, she kept flapping mightily, and slowly dragged him across the deck. “Get her you fools!” he shouted, spurring the other pirates into action. Several flew up and forced her back down to the deck, where they bound her with ropes. “A feisty one, aren’t you? Hahaha! To the brig with her! We’ll see what the slavers will pay tomorrow.” As the pirates picked her up and dragged her below decks, Derpy couldn’t help but stare at the captain’s cruel grin. Once they got to the brig the pirates tossed her in and locked the cell door behind her before storming out. Derpy shook her head to clear it, then she saw that she wasn’t alone in the cell. And the other pony was none other than her brother, Written Script! “Derpy?” he asked, as if in a daze. “Big brother? What are you doing here?” “I was kidnapped on my way to Manehattan. How did they catch you?” “I was caught in a wild storm and mistook them for a friendly ship. But that’s not what I…” Derpy trailed off as she realized that this must be this world’s Written Script, rather than her own. Written Script shook his head slowly. You were out delivering packages again, weren’t you? Derpy, no package is worth your life! How many times do I have to tell you that?” “But that isn’t it. I was trying to meet up with my friends who took the tunnel.” Script shrugged forlornly. “I suppose it doesn’t matter now. We’re already far from Equestria’s heartlands, just waiting until we get hoofed over to the mines.” Derpy stood up. “Not yet! Not as long as we can still escape!” She turned and bucked the cell door as hard as she could, bursting it into splinters. “Meet me on the main deck!” she yelled, before charging out into the corridors, knocking out each of the pirates on her way straight for the engine room. Once she got there she stole the engineer pirate’s sword and started stabbing it into the engine, over and over again. Steam began escaping and the ship lurched forward, no longer able to stay in the sky. Derpy made her way up to the top, but what she saw made her freeze. The captain had his talons wrapped around her brother’s throat, holding him overboard with a sword pointed at his chest. “Hold it right there lass, or I’ll be spillin’ yer brother’s guts overboard fer the birds!” “Just don’t hurt him!” “Now, I want ya to stand still and let me mates bind ya tight, ya hear!?” “No Derpy! Don-” The captain tightened his grip, cutting Written Script’s speech short. Derpy sighed, her wings drooping as several pirates began to encircle her. But just then the ship hit a mountain and lurched again, causing the captain to lose his grip, sending Written Script plummeting towards the ground. Immediately Derpy sprang to action, leaping overboard and diving straight towards her brother. She caught him and pulled up, his hooves nearly digging a trough in the snow. Behind them the pirate ship exploded. “And that is why Derpy was late to the meeting place,” Emerald finished. Rarity simply stared at her. “Well, it’s possible.” More staring. “Alright, fine. I have no idea why she hasn’t shown up yet.” “Perhaps we should leave an indicator of our passage and continue on?” Rarity suggested. “That way, Derpy doesn’t have to wait for us through the whole canyon.” “I guess. But how will we leave a sign? There’s nothing here but rocks and tracks!” “Hmm…” Rarity hummed, searching her saddlebags. “I wonder… Did I remember to pack- aha!” She pulled out a stick of makeup. Emerald instantly realized where she was going with this, but she decided to let Rarity have the moment. She had earned it, after all. Rarity uncapped the stick and levitated it over to the wall next to the tunnel. There she wrote in large letters: EMERALD AND RARITY WENT THAT WAY => “There. That should let her follow us easily until the end of the canyon.” “Forward, to… Well, at this point I’m expecting a long boring walk between us and the next adventure, but after the tunnel I don’t mind.” “Actually darling, we may not have to walk at all.” Rarity pointed to their left, and when Emerald followed her hoof she grinned. An old pushcart was the perfect thing to carry them to their next challenge. “Aye, miss. We’ll be sailin’ smoothly ta tha next port.” Rarity just sighed as they walked over to investigate it. Emerald immediately noticed that the wheels were rusted in place. “Aha! So, ye be thinkin’ bout denyin’ us are rightful passage, eh? Well not on my watch! We’ll be havin’ no slackers on my crew!” She carefully began restoring the wheels to a serviceable condition. “Alright. That should be good. Now…” She paused as she saw that the handle was also rusted in place. With a groan she set to work again, and in short order she had everything ship-shape. “Okay, now we’re ready. First mate Rarity, will ye join me on me first voyage as captain?” Rarity, who had buried her face in her hooves, looked up at that. She cleared her throat before replying. “Aye ma’am, I’ll join you,” in what was certainly not a piratey accent, but it was a fair sight closer than her usual tones. “That’s the spirit!” Emerald encouraged as Rarity climbed aboard. “Now, shove off!” Rarity looked taken aback. “But, I thought you wanted me to join you?” “No no, not like that!” Emerald said, frantically waving her forehooves. “Shove off as in start the boat!” “Oh. Very well then.” Together they both pushed down on the handle as hard as they could, but nothing happened. After a short pause Rarity spoke up. “Dear, you’re supposed to push up at the moment.” Emerald could feel her cheeks redden. “Right. On three. One. Two. Three.” This time the cart moved, but only a few inches, and with a horrible grinding noise. Emerald facehooved. “Right, the axle. I’ll be right back.” As Derpy flew, she was silently berating herself. She knew that she shouldn’t have abandoned her friends, even if they didn’t seem to mind. But it only took one look into the black darkness of the tunnel to send a shiver up her spine. She was supposed to be a royal guard! Fearless defenders who would face any foe, no matter the danger, to protect their fellow ponies. Yet here she was, running away from some dumb tunnel. She started to turn back, but then she righted herself with a sigh. Her friends already had a huge head start on her, so she wouldn’t be able to catch up to them until the other side anyway. Then she remembered that while they would have light, she would have none if she tried to follow them. Derpy resolved that she would not falter again. The next time her friends needed her to be strong, she would be! Eventually the mountains beneath her gave way to a forest of broad leafed trees like the ones in White Tail Woods. She looked down, but she couldn’t see the train tracks anywhere. She must have drifted off course! Sighing in exasperation, she reached for her saddlebags, rummaging through until she pulled out her trusty map. She opened it up, only to see that it didn’t extend past the hills behind her. “But… But I remembered to bring a map this time!” Derpy called out. The only reply was the winds as she continued flying. So what if she was lost? She got lost all the time! This time it was outside of Equestria, but that didn’t change anything! This was just like winter wrap up. All she had to do was fly in a straight line until she saw somewhere that she could get directions. So she did. And she kept flying. And also… more flying. Okay, this was starting to get boring, when would she- Wait, what was that? Below her, a mountain was poking out of the surrounding forest. Well, that wasn’t any help. Maps didn’t grow on mountains, they grew in paper places. Well, she was pretty sure they didn’t grow, they were made. …Or were they? Derpy realized that she had always assumed that maps were made like muffins, but what if they were made more like apples? She would have to look into that, but not now. Right now she had a mission! But what was it again? She tapped her forehead with a forehoof. She needed to get somewhere. The birds! No, it was the middle of spring, they’d already gotten the birds. She hadn’t even gotten lost this year! Well, she was lost now, but she hadn’t gotten lost finding the birds, because she had written down her instructions. Maybe she should have written down her instructions this time. Then she remembered! She was supposed to meet up with Emerald and Rarity in the valley South of the hills. But to get there she needed directions. She looked down and saw a palace on the mountain she had seen earlier. She stopped and stared at it. It did not vanish when she blinked her eyes, shook her head, and pinched herself, so she decided that it was probably real. She descended quickly, but managed not to ram into the ground too hard. Standing up she looked up at the large pillars and marveled at how well hidden this place had been. It was the same color as the rocks, so she hadn’t seen it until she was right on top of it. But she was here on a mission, so she began trotting in to find a map. She found lots of neat stuff, like a giant weapon rack, a painting of some giant minotaur-looking things, and a banquet table made of stone, but she couldn’t find a map no matter how hard she looked. Eventually she walked into one room that really took her breath away. It was an art gallery of some sort, made of huge paintings that took up whole walls. One showed a village of farmers. The next showed one of the giants and a pair of griffons fighting over a dragon’s hoard, complete with a disturbingly realistic dragon body in the background. But it was the third picture that held Derpy’s gaze. It showed a battle between the giants and the griffons, both sides had heavy losses, done as well as the dragon, but all the more bloody. She stared in some odd mixture of shock, awe, and revulsion. After a bit she could see that the griffons were being routed, though at a terrible cost. After she could stand it no more she took a step back, accidentally tripping over her tail in the process. She fell onto her back, and got her first view of the ceiling. It too had been painted, but unlike the others it filled her with a sense of relief. For it was the thing she had been seeking from the start, a map of the world! She stood and flew up to hover under the place where Appleloosa was, though this map didn’t show it. Then she looked south over the mountains and saw a valley if you went straight, a jungle if you turned left, and a forest with a mountain sticking out if you went right. The mountain even had a tiny palace on it that looked just like this one! So… If she was on the mountain, and her friends were in that valley to the East, then she just had to go East. So her next step was to find East. She landed again and left the way she had come, pondering how she would find her… What had Emerald said? Her head? She would find her head! She let her eyes wander on her way back out of the palace, which turned out to be a very good thing. On the floor of the entrance hall she found a compass rose painted on the floor, with East pointing straight out the exit. Lining herself up with the arrow she flew off, hoping to catch up to her friends without getting lost again. Captain Emerald was grinning widely as their sloop swiftly sailed the canyon. True, it did so on train tracks instead of water, and strictly speaking it wasn’t a boat in any sense of the word, but such details were insignificant next to her imagination. She was a brave captain, setting course to save a hemisphere. For the first time since their trek to Canterlot she truly felt like she belonged here, on an epic quest. In the sky above and ahead of them she saw a small gray shape come to a stop after quickly coming over the right cliff. She recognized it as a pegasus, having seen plenty of similar shapes every now and then, and figured that it was probably Derpy. “Hey! Derpy, down here!” she shouted. The speck quickly began to grow larger, and she and Rarity stopped pumping while they waited for Derpy to reach them.