Derpy sat by the river in Whitetail woods, looking down at her purple-coated reflection. She was waiting for quite a long time before she heard hoofsteps approaching. A smile came across the unicorn’s face as she confirmed the Harmony Rangers had fallen into her trap. She had to get rid of the smile quickly, however. For her trap to work, her acting had to be perfect. Fortunately, the Rangers took forever to get there, so she had plenty of time to practice before now.
“I missed him,” Derpy said in an apathetic voice. “Probably by about five minutes. Maybe ten. Though judging by the fact that you all have appeared to stop trusting me, it seems we have more important things to talk about.” Slowly, Derpy got up and turned to face the Rangers, allowing them to see the tears in her purple eyes. The tears weren’t real, of course, but they were enough to fool the five Rangers before her.
“We haven’t stopped trusting you, Twilight,” Fluttershy said.
“No, but Rainbow Dash did,” Pinkie said, causing Rainbow Dash to nudge her with her elbow.
“Whatever would make you think we stopped trusting you, Twilight?” Rarity asked. “Is it because I asked you to teach me that teleportation spell? Because that was just for in case you couldn’t cast it for whatever reason.”
“So all of you decided to spy on me just because Rainbow Dash told you to?” Derpy asked. “Well let me put some of your fears to rest, Rainbow. The reason I’ve been acting so strange lately is because I was running some tests on myself today and found out that there’s a good chance I’m dying.” The other Rangers gasped in horror.
“You can’t be serious!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “How could you be dying?”
White Ranger mentally smiled to herself. That was exactly the reaction she was looking for. These Rangers were putty in her hooves. (Not exactly “Putty Pony” putty, but you get the idea.) Easily shaped to her will. A few tears here, a smile or two when appropriate, and they won’t even realize they’re being conned until it’s far too late. “It’s my Ranger powers,” Derpy continued. “Perhaps Nightmare Moon was simply desperate to make her evil Ranger stronger than you all, or maybe she did it on purpose and simply didn’t care about the side effects. Whatever the case may be, my powers are too much for my body to handle. They’re slowly destroying me. It hasn’t done much damage yet, but the more I use my Ranger powers, the worse it’s going to get.”
Rainbow Dash shook her head as though trying to wake herself from a bad dream, doing her best to keep her tears hidden. “No...” she said. “No, this can’t be happening. You have to be able to do something about this, Twilight. You’re smarter than this!”
Derpy quickly realized that what Rainbow Dash said was the one flaw in her plan. Even the good version of her in this world was a little too smart to be unable to handle the Thunder Coin. However, she didn’t make this realization evident. Instead, in an effort to salvage her deception, she calmly added, “I guess Nightmare Moon has one ability I don’t have: anticipation. She thought Derpy might be defeated and made sure she was strong enough to handle the Thunder Coin and I wasn’t.”
“But wait a second,” Derpy suddenly said in a slightly different voice than before. “How can that be true? I’m alive and well as it is.”
Derpy noticed Rainbow Dash step back with a look of horror on her face. “D-D-Derpy?” she asked in a shaky voice.
Twilight looked down at her hoof to find that it was suddenly grey. She checked her mane only to find that it was blonde. Her horn was gone, and instead she had a pair of wings. “I remember...” Derpy said to herself. “But I wasn’t here. This was during one of the days that never happened, and that was while I was still dead. How can this be? Unless...” All of a sudden, Derpy saw that the five ponies before her had begun to glow a strange yellowish color before turning to strange particles, floating up into the wind, leaving no trace of the ponies that once stood there. The trees and grass around Derpy then started doing the same thing, leaving the pegasus alone in a dark, void-like room. Derpy tried to call out to the emptiness, but her voice was completely lost to the darkness. Then, she saw that her own body was starting to glow similarly to what had happened to everything around her. Slowly, painfully, she began to vanish from existence, particle by particle, until there was nothing left of her.
Derpy awoke with a start, breathing heavily. She was still alive, still at the moon base, still one of Discord’s Chaos Rangers. “It was... just a dream?” Derpy said to herself. Derpy turned on the light next to her bed, pulled out her Thunder Coin, and just stared at it for a moment. “What have you done, Twilly? What are you planning that I’m not seeing?” Derpy questioned the Thunder Coin for several minutes before she realized that she wasn’t going to get any answers from it. She went to put her Thunder Coin away, but as she did this, she noticed that her hoof that she was holding the Thunder Coin with had started to glow a faint yellowish color, almost similarly to what happened in the dream she just had. However, just a split-second after Derpy noticed this, her hoof returned to its normal grey color. Derpy thought about what had just happened for a long while before finally allowing herself to shrug it off and go back to sleep.