"Good morning, everypony, and welcome to your first session! My name is Dr. Whooves, and while I've only recently started working here, I can assure you that I am indeed qualified to offer you the help you require."
From his office chair, Dr. Whooves looked out across the oversized office at two ponies seated opposite him on a plush couch. Despite his smile, which he hoped appeared warm and calming, his patients wore glum masks of indignation. He swallowed and pressed on.
"Let's see… we should probably start off with names. Would you like to go first, ma'm?" His gaze fell upon a wall-eyed, gray pegasus, who looked around the room before pointing an unsure hoof at her chest.
"Yes, you."
The pony cleared her throat. "Um, hi. I'm Derpy."
Dr. Whooves frowned and glanced at his clipboard, which listed the names of his two patients. "I apologize, Miss Doo, but due to the nature of your condition, I must insist that you refrain from referring to yourself by a nickname."
The mare recoiled as if she'd been slapped, her goofy eyes wide with confusion. He cleared his throat and added, "It's part of your treatment."
"But, but I'm… My name isn't… Derpy isn't a nickname!"
The therapist pursed his lips and glanced back down at his clipboard. "Yes, I see. However, all of your previous medical records list you as one Miss Ditzy Doo. I trust you are familiar with this moniker?"
The mare sputtered for a moment, then heaved a defeated sigh and nodded. Dr. Whooves smiled at her reassuringly, "Very good, and why are you here today, Miss Doo?"
Miss Doo winced upon hearing her name. "Well, I guess it all started when my voice changed..."
"Ah," said Whooves, nodding. "So puberty, then?"
"What?" Her gaze snapped back up from the floor, an embarrassed blush playing on her cheeks. "No, no, way later. Like, one day I woke up and my voice was way higher pitched. Like it is now. Come to think of it, that was the same day that everypony..." she trailed off and began muttering to herself.
The therapist stepped in, pulling her out of her inner monologue. "Perhaps we should start at the beginning, hmm? How long have you thought your name was Derpy?"
"How long have I…? You've got it all wrong! It's always been Derpy. Everypony just started calling me something else when my voice changed, and now you all think I'm crazy!" She punctuated the last word with a stomp of her hoof, crossing her forelegs and scowling at the floor.
Dr. Whooves frowned and lifted his pen with a quick burst of magic. He scribbled something on his clipboard and murmured to himself, "False memories date back to early childhood. Subject appears unsure of..."
"They're not false memories, Doc! Everypony has always called me Derpy, even my parents. All my report cards and birthday cards and tests and, well, everything. They all say Derpy Hooves on them."
"Do they, Miss Doo?"
"Yes!" she insisted. A moment passed and her face fell. "Or at least, they did." She looked imploringly at the therapist, her lip trembling slightly. "Why would I make that up?"
Dr. Whooves donned his best comforting smile. "Nopony is saying you made it up, Miss Do- er, ma'am. Let's approach this from a different angle, shall we? Maybe you should start by telling the group"—he gestured to the room's only other occupant—"when all of this started. Do you remember when everypony stopped calling you… what was it, again?"
"Derpy." Miss Doo nodded enthusiastically. "Oh, yes. I remember the day it happened. It, uh, sort of happened twice," she said with a far-away look in her peculiar eyes.
Dr. Whooves raised an eyebrow.
"Good morning, Derpy. How's your route been today?"
Derpy smiled at Twilight Sparkle around her mouthful of letters, responding with only a pleasant squeak in order to avoid dropping her cargo. Twilight giggled and levitated the letters out of Derpy's mouth with a "thank you," before heading into the strange tree-book-house that always made Derpy's head hurt when she thought about it.
Her mail route was finally finished for the day. Happily, Derpy flapped off toward Ponyville's town hall for the day's big event. Today was a special day. Today, Derpy would be helping Rainbow Dash set up the decorations for Ponyville's celebration of its star rodeo pony, Applejack. Normally, such a task would have been entrusted to the weather team, but most of the weather ponies were out making sure the day was as beautiful as possible for Applejack's sendoff. When she had heard Rainbow Dash, one of the nicest, coolest ponies in town, would be helping with the preparations, Derpy had wasted no time in offering to lend a hoof.
The town hall was now only a few hundred yards away. Gleefully, Derpy barreled towards the iconic building, already able to make out the small form of Rainbow Dash in the distance. Some of the decorations were already up, and as Derpy drew closer, she found herself hypnotized by all the colorful streamers and the flags and the pinwheels that spun lazily in the breeze. Taken with the happy sight as she was, Derpy failed to notice how close the building loomed until it was too late.
With a thunderous crack, the hapless pegasus collided with the roof of Ponyville town hall, taking out the first wall and crashing clear through the other side. Amidst the cries of onlookers, Derpy spun out and plummeted downwards. Moments before impact, a pair of strong hooves stopped her descent, just barely rescuing her from the rapidly approaching ground.
The bystanders cheered as Rainbow Dash set Derpy safely down, dusting her off. "You okay, Derpy?" she asked, her voice frantic with concern. "You hit that roof so hard it nearly came off! Is anything broken? How many hooves am I holding up?"
Derpy simply giggled and threw her arms around her rescuer, crushing her in a grateful hug. "Thanks, Rainbow Dash! You're my hero!"
After a brief visit with Nurse Redheart confirming that no lasting damage had been done — at least to Derpy — the spunky pegasus was rearing to go. The nurse had warned her that any further accidents would likely lead to serious medical (and fiscal) repercussions, and had thus insisted that she not help with the decorations.
Not one to argue with a pony in uniform, Derpy had wrangled a nice cloud from which to watch the preparations. She'd selected a gray one, having been amused by the similarity of its coloration to that of her own coat, and by the funny electrical sound it made when she sat on it. As she was forbidden to partake in any hooves-on activities, Derpy instead decided she would help by cheering for the other ponies.
"Go, Rainbow Dash!" she sang, leaping into the air with an enthusiastic backflip and alighting once more on her volatile perch. Her hooves came down more heavily than she had intended and with a crack, a white bolt lanced out from the thundercloud, directly towards the recipient of her admiration.
Rainbow cried out as the bolt singed the end of her tail. She shot a glare at her admirer. Wrinkling her nose at the smell of burnt hair, she called out, "Now careful, Derpy." To herself, she added, "Don't wanna do any more damage than you've already done..."
As if in response, the mangled roof of town hall issued a low grown and collapsed in on itself. Derpy bounced once more on the thundercloud. "I just don't know what went wrong!"
"And then I got zapped too, and then I guess I might've broken a couple more things, and..."
Dr. Whooves cleared his throat and lifted a hoof to quiet his rambling patient. "Forgive me, Miss Doo, but I believe you have already given me all the information I need. You say you"—he glanced down at his copious notes—"went clear through the building with such force that the roof collapsed in on itself, yet you were completely uninjured?"
The pegasus smiled in the affirmative. "Yup!"
The therapist clicked his pen and circled something on his clipboard a few times. "I must say, Miss Doo, that perhaps the answer is simpler than we had previously thought. I suspect that this Nurse Redheart character somehow missed the obvious symptoms of a concussion when she inspected you after your accident. Perhaps your memory loss is a side effect of the injuries you sustained."
"No," Miss Doo said decisively. "No, it can't be that, because everypony still knew my name was Derpy after Rainbow Dash saved me. And when I flew into the roof of town hall again, everypony was already calling me..."
"You did what?" interrupted an incredulous Dr. Whooves. "You're saying you had the same accident a second time? How could you possibly… how close together were these two incidents? Chronologically speaking."
The mare took a moment to consider the question, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "Well, I guess they happened sort of at the same time."
Now thoroughly confused, the therapist quickly crossed out several lines of text on his clipboard. "But did I not hear you correctly when you said that the ceiling collapsed shortly after you collided with it?"
"Yup. But I hit it before it collapsed," Miss Doo said.
"The second time?"
"Uh, yeah? How would I hit it after it collapsed?"
With some difficulty, Dr. Whooves dissuaded his hoof from colliding with his forehead. "And why," he asked, "did you not mention this second collision when you were relating this tale to us?"
"Duh, because you interrupted me before I got to that part!"
"Miss Doo, I'm quite sure you discussed the roof collapsing with no mention of..."
"The first time it collapsed, yeah. Not the second."
The therapist was at a loss for words. Desperately, he turned to the room's other occupant: an excessively muscular white pegasus sitting next to Miss Doo. "Are you following all this?"
"YEAAAH!"
The outburst caught Dr. Whooves by surprise, sending him toppling backwards off his chair with a muffled thump. He lay there for a moment, allowing the plush wall-to-wall carpet upon which his head now rested to soothe his mind. With a sigh, he finally climbed to his hooves, righted his chair, and returned to his seat, his expression the epitome of composure and understanding.
"Very well, Miss Doo. Please continue your story."
"Good morning, Ditzy. How's your route been today?"
Derpy smiled at Twilight Sparkle around her mouthful of letters, good naturedly correcting the forgetful unicorn with a garbled grunt.
"What was that?" Twilight laughed, levitating the letters out of Derpy's mouth.
"I said, my name's Derpy. Who's Ditz- whoa." Her voice sounded different inside her head. She cleared her throat a few times and repeated herself, but was unable to get her voice to revert to its normal cadence.
Twilight cocked her head quizzically at the mailmare. After a moment's hesitation, her expression broke into a grin and she chuckled at her friend. "Oh Ditzy, I don't think I'll ever understand your jokes."
This only served to further confuse Derpy, but as she recalled, the things that Twilight said often confused her. Deciding not to dwell on the unusual exchange, she waved goodbye and took to the sky once more. Casting a glance in the direction of town hall, she decided she ought to see how the repairs were coming along. It was the least she could do, as Mayor Mare had personally forbidden her to help with the restoration project herself.
As she neared the building, Derpy noted with surprise that not only had town hall been completely rebuilt, but the decorations from Applejack's sendoff were once again hanging proudly off the sides of newly restored roof. Taken with the confusing sight as she was, Derpy failed to notice how close the building loomed until it was too late.
Before she knew what was happening, Derpy was once again in the hooves of the very pegasus who had so similarly saved her life just the day before.
"You okay, Ditzy? You hit that building so hard it nearly..."
"What did you just say?"
"I said, are you okay? Oh gosh, Ditzy, did you hurt your hearing? Do you understand me? How many hooves am I..."
"Who's Ditzy?" the mare demanded. "Why is everypony calling me Ditzy?"
Rainbow's worried expression quickly morphed into one of horror. "Oh no!" she wailed. "It's amnesia! I knew it! Somepony, call Nurse Redheart, quick!"
The next hour or so proceeded in a confounding blur. Derpy's emergency checkup with Nurse Redheart only led to more contention regarding her name, and though it was once again determined that there were no symptoms of a concussion, she was nonetheless whisked off to the ER to determine the source of her so-called memory loss.
After a series of ineffective scans and tests, Derpy was sent home. Not knowing what else to do, she returned to town hall, assuring everypony that she was of sound body and mind. In a desperate attempt to get the world back to normal, she made every effort to make the day proceed as it had the first time, even going so far as to zap first Rainbow Dash and then herself with lightning from the same thundercloud.
Yet at the end of the day, everypony was still calling her Ditzy. The next morning, and throughout the following weeks, nothing changed. As if that weren't enough, her voice was stuck in its new, unnaturally high pitch.
Fearing she had exhausted all other options, Derpy checked herself into a week-long inpatient therapy program.
"And that's how I ended up here. See, it can't be a concussion thingy, because Twilight called me Ditzy before I even broke town hall."
"On the contrary, Miss Doo, I'm afraid it is indeed a concussion. Your injuries appear to have prompted you to reinvent your memories from the day of your accident." Dr. Whooves leaned back in his seat thoughtfully. "I suppose it may also be a result of..."
"That's not it," the mare said. "I know what I went through, and I'm telling you, that day happened twice. Somepony has to be behind this. Somepony who has the power to change the past, or... or something!"
"YEAAAH!" agreed the muscular pegasus.
"Mr. Biceps, please," chided Dr. Whooves.
"My name's Snowflake," the stallion fired back, "and I think this filly's tellin' the truth. Same thing happened to me. One day I'm a Wonderbolt trainee, the next everypony's sayin' I can't fly."
"Can you fly, Mr. Biceps?"
The stallion grappled with the question for several moments. Finally, he shouted, "My name's Snowflake!"
"I believe you!" Miss Doo cheered, leaping to her hooves. "C'mon, Snowflake. We've gotta find out who's behind all this. Let's get outta here."
"YEAAAH!"
Before Dr. Whooves could protest, the pair were already halfway out the door. Ditzy Doo led the way while Bulk Biceps fluttered awkwardly behind her, barely held aloft by his tiny, ineffective wings.
"Well," the therapist said with a groan, "I suppose that's enough for one day."
He made his way over to his desk and was about to begin filing away his now-useless notes when something about the wooden plaque sitting on his desk caught his attention. Screwing his eyes, he stared at it in disbelief. He blinked several times, yet the sight before him remained the same. There on the nameplate, embossed in big, clearly legible block letters, was the name Dr. Timeturner.
"Oh, for pony's sake."