Against All Odds: Derpy's Greatest Misadventure

by Mannulus

It's Powered by What!?

As the Red Whatever sailed forward under the mighty power of Engine Room's titanic quads, Discord and the Doctor decided it was a good time to brief Derpy on what precisely she could expect find inside the engine.

"We have no idea of what you'll find inside the engine," said Discord.

"Not the foggiest," said the Doctor.

"But you built it!" said Derpy, nearly spilling her tea in her frustration.

"Be careful with that," said Teacup. "My whole private reserve is in the hold; after all of that has been drunk, the world will never again know such dulcet, complex flavor."

"Really?" asked the Doctor, staring into the cup of tea he'd been given. "Well, that's going on my list of things to fix."

"Tea?" asked Discord, giving the Doctor a skeptical look. "Going to save the tea? Uh huh... Don't you have, like, planets to save?"

"I'll get around to it!" said the Doctor.

"Well, I don't really watch your show, but it just seems like..."

"Well, I didn't like Star Trek, either!" cried the Doctor, and he took a deep breath to calm himself. "But here we both are nonetheless, drinking tea on the deck of a pirate ship headed towards a... thing. We can get along until this is over with -- and not question one another's methods."

"Really," said Teacup, "could both of you take it just a tad easier on the fourth wall, there? What did it ever do to either of you?"

"I don't know what everypony is talking about," said Derpy, "but I really would like to know how the one who built the machine can't know what it's like inside it?"

"I built it from the inside out," said Discord. "It was constructed layer upon layer, millennium after millennium. I forgot most of the details, and even if I remembered them, reality itself is so unstable inside this thing, you might as well ask me what it looks like inside my refrigerator."

"Your what?" asked the Doctor.

"Trust me," said Discord; "it's crazy in there."

"Ah," said the Doctor.

"From what I understand," said Teacup, "it's really not as if knowing about the machine would help you. Your best chance is most likely to fly in blind like a bat out of Tartaros."

"That's racist and ableist!" cried Helm, the bat pony helm officer of the Red Whatever, who as it so happened wore a pair of eye patches to protect his eyes from the sun, thus rendering himself blind.

"No it's not," said Teacup. "It's a colloquialism. Don't go social justice warrior on me, or I'll let somepony else drive! You're not even really blind for pony's sake! And for that matter, why are you wearing your eye patches? The sun set hours ago!"

"Well, how was I to know!?" asked Helm, removing his eye patches. "I couldn't see! Somepony needs to tell me these things!"

Discord gave a smile of calm satisfaction.

"I love this ship," he said. "Can I hang out with you guys more often?"

"Don't see why not," shrugged Teacup.

The Doctor cleared his throat, and spoke.

"To bring things back to the matter at hand... hoof... forehoof? Oh, blast; to get things back on track, (as it seems I keep having to do) Teacup is right, Ditzy; the less you know about what you have to do inside the machine, the better. Anything that should help you in a logical world will only hinder you in there."

"But there is one thing I can tell you," said Discord. "Just breaking parts of the machine won't work. In fact, because part of it being broken should make it less likely to work..."

"It will only make it work even faster if I fly around inside randomly breaking things," said Derpy.

"You're getting it!" said Discord.

"Yay," said Derpy. "What cryptic, nonsensical thing do I have to do to actually stop it?"

"Well," said Discord, "The only thing that can permanently, truly stop the engine is if you disable its power source."

"And that is?" asked Derpy.

"An impossible dream," said Discord.

"I knew it would be something abstract and weird," said Teacup.

"Well, that's the nexus of all improbability, isn't it?" asked Discord. "You know what I'm talking about; that one dream... that thing you want more than anything but you know you can simply never have because everything about who and what you are makes it impossible.

It's the would-be poet with no skill at verse. It's the tone-deaf musician who won't put down his instrument. It's the shrimp with asthma who wants to be a star athlete, and the ugly, awkward colt with a crush on the beautiful, popular filly. It's the author who knows a good story when he reads one, but has no idea of what makes it good."

At this, he stopped, and looked outward from the monitor. For just a moment, he raised his eyebrow at the author. It was an awkward moment, but Mannulus shrugged it off as best he could, and continued typing.

"It's the most forlorn, yet powerful thing in the universe," Discord continued. "It's so strong in fact that sometimes it really does make the impossible happen. It's denial, plain and simple, but it's so much more. It's stubbornness and hope and perseverance; blood, sweat, tears, and toil. If there's such a thing as a soul, it's the soul of the soul."

"Wow," said the Doctor. "That's deep."

"Not really," said Discord. "There's no such thing as a soul."

"That's all really... nice," said Derpy, "but what's it look like."

"I don't know," said Discord. "It was my impossible dream that I put at the center of the machine, but my only dream back then was to finish the machine. Of course, now it's finished, but the trouble is that it's not my dream anymore. I mean, I forgot the lousy thing even existed until I was taking a shower last night. It was one of those 'Aw, snap!' kind of moments, you know?"

"Well, what's your impossible dream now?" asked Derpy.

"I don't have one anymore," said Discord. "I gave up dreaming a long time ago; it makes life more fun if you just let it come at you however it wants to. Dreams are just you trying to force it, but I suppose there are some who still need them. Whatever the case, it has to still be in there. The machine is definitely starting up -- I can feel it -- and impossible dreams never die; they're too absurd. Reality won't even acknowledge them, much less go out of its way to kill them."

"So I'm going into a giant machine that I know nothing about to find an abstract concept that can't possibly exist and yet somehow serves as the machine's power source." said the pegasus.

"Basically," said Discord.

"How do I even stop it when I find it?" asked Derpy.

"Well," Discord began, but then there came an outcry from above.

"Cap'n, I seen somethin' strange up ahead!"

It was Lookout. The squat little pegasus landed heavily on the deck, and waddled up to Teacup.

"It be an unnatural thing," he said. "A shadow what glows in the deep; a stranger thing than me eye has ever seen."

"Lookout, that's absurd," said Teacup. "How can it be a shadow and also glow? Those are diametrically opposed concepts."

"More obliquely, really," said the Doctor. "A shadow doesn't destroy or absorb light; it's just a place where light isn't striking as directly as the surfaces around it."

"Then how can it glow!?" cried Teacup.

"I didn't say it was at all normal," said the Doctor. "It's just that you made it sound as if it was a black hole or some such."

Lookout pulled aside the thick bangs that flopped down over his one, cyclopean eye, and scratched at his forehead.

"Uh, anypony mean to come look at this, or would ye rather stand here arguing semantics?" he asked. "Because whatever I seen, and whether it be possible or not, I know it be scary."

"Sure," said Teacup. "Anything to get myself away from Nit and Pick, here."

She gestured at Discord and the Doctor, then followed Lookout towards the prow.

"Excuse me?" said Discord. "We're coming too."

"Of course you are," said Teacup, "but it was an excuse to take a clever jab at the both of you."

Derpy sighed, and followed her strange companions towards the front of the ship. Looking over the railing, she saw the thing to which Lookout had referred, and it was indeed nothing less than a shadow that glowed in the deep. A huge expanse of the ocean simply appeared darker than the water around it, and all over it were various tiny lights that glowed, oscillated, and spun beneath the glassy surface of the water. Though they illuminated the area around themselves somewhat, the shadow was so vast that they hardly allowed the bulk of it to be seen or comprehended. It seemed to stretch to the horizon, and the little gray pegasus felt her blood chilled at its immensity.

"Wonderful!" said Discord. "We're early. It hasn't begun its final ascent yet."

Just as Discord finished this sentence, there came from the waves far beneath a long, low thrum, combined with deep, metallic creaking. There were amid this still other sounds of warbling, whirring and a muted, staccato thud that began to repeat itself in a slowly increasing tempo.

"What's that awful noise!?" asked Derpy, her voice trembling at the intensifying cacophony.

"It's beginning its final ascent, of course," said Discord.

Everyone turned to him, and gave sour looks.

"Well, we weren't that early," said the draconequus.