• Published 13th Aug 2018
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Derpy Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap!) - Unwhole Hole



Derpy becomes a killer for hire. It goes about as well as can be expected.

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Chapter 13: The Buckets

Derpy was munching on the breadstick when the phone rang. Derpy picked it up. “Hello?” she said.

There was no answer. The phone continued to ring. The main reason for this was that Derpy had mistaken a banana for the telephone receiver. She was not sure if that was how it normally worked; telephones, after all, were new technology. And therefore witchraft. But Spoiled Rich had given it to her, and therefore it was probably cursed and had been (literally) given birth by Satin herself.

“Just like Fluttershy,” reasoned Derpy, setting the banana down- -and saving it for later. She picked up the phone.

“Derpy here.”

She paused, listening. “Two unicorns,” she said. “Flim and Flam. Youngish. Probably cute- -” Yelling in her ear. “Okay, not cute. How do you want it done?” A response. “Any way I want, as long as they kick the bucket? I can do that.” Another order. “And take their horns for trophies. I can do that too.” Derpy picked up the banana beside her phone. “What are your throughts on bananas?”

She heard shuddering on the far side of the phone, and then a click. Derpy set it back on the cradle and stood up. She had work to do.

Flim and Flam had no idea that they were about to die when they arrived at a structure near the outskirts of town. It was- -or had once been- -a barn. Or a bar. Or both. Not that it was really possible to tell, considering the state it was in.

Although it was rare, some ponies had their cutie marks in dust. Not dusting, just dust. They loved the stuff. Not even they would dare approach this place. The wood on the exterior had rotted, and the wood on the interior had joined it; parts of it had collapsed, but only remained standing because the construction was so poor that there was no logical way for them to fall. There was not only black mold, but blue, green, red, and a curious type that was striped with black AND white. There were also rats. Real big ones.

Yet Flam still stared at this wreck and whistled. “Excellent. Most excellent.”

“I know,” said Flim, brushing the feathers off his shoulders that had previously belonged to the former owner of this dilapidated husk. A mare that he had just finished snuggling.

“Did you get her to drop the price, or do we need to use all of our ‘Great and Powerful’ money?”

“I did one better,” said Flim, slyly. “I actually got HER to pay US!”

Flam blinked. “Then you must be a far better snuggler than I thought!”

“No, no, that was just to up the pay.” He held out the bits he had acquired.

“How, dear brother, did you manage this one?”

“I managed to convince her that we were from a remediation company and are willing to do the cleanup work on this place.”

Flim and Flam looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Clean up! Teehee! CLEANUP!”

“I know! Apparently it’s a superfund toxic waste site! And where an orphanage burned down! And built on a cervine burial ground!”

“Wait a minute,” said Flam. “Burial ground?”

“Don’t worry, they moved the headstones.”

“Oh. Excellent!”

“Most certainly!” Flim poked at one of the walls. His hoof passed through easily. “Why, with a little paint and some boards, nopony will even know it’s condemned!”

“And since it’s zoned as ‘condemned’, that means no inspections!”

“So we don’t have to build to code!”

“And we can probably trick some earth-pony rube into painting the whole place for us!”

“Just like when we were kids!”

The two laughed. Hard. Flam took a step back, and only stopped when his hoof very nearly hit something shiny. He looked down, confused, and saw a pail sitting on the floor. One that had not been there previously.

“Flim…did you buy a bucket?”

“A bucket? No, not that I can recall. But it does look nice. I’m sure we can find a use for it.”

Flam picked it up. “Strange, it doesn’t seem rusted at all…” He sniffed it. “And it smells like…muffins?”

“Well, I suppose we can put it with the others.”

Flam raised an eyebrow. “Others?”

“Of course.” Flim pointed. Flam felt a shiver run up his horn. There was a small herd of buckets surrounding his brother. Buckets that he was absolutely sure had not been there a minute before.

“I think something’s wrong,” he said. “Flam. I think we ought to go back to town. Survey the clientel, and perhaps find some more girls.”

“It’s too early,” said Flim. “We already saw that with that weird shaved…vampire…thing.” He shivered. “We ought to prepare the office first.”

“Flam, I’m not joking, I really must insist- -”

Their oil lamp flickered and nearly went out- -despite their having been no breeze a moment before. For a moment, the room was swathed in pitch blackness.

Then the light came back and Flim screamed like a little filly who had just gotten her horn stuck in a knothole. The room was now completely filled with a veritable army of buckets. Not all of them were nice and new, either. Some were large. And rusty.

“Sweet Celestia in tight leather tack!” cried Flam, jumping back but gracefully avoiding the buckets. “She was right! It IS haunted!”

“Now, brother, we have to think of a rational explanation for this- -”

That was when Flim saw his brother’s eyes widen, not staring at the buckets- -but at a partially collapsed section of the building. Flam had started to weep tears of horror.

Flam slowly turned. At first, for a brief, blissful moment, he saw nothing. Then his eyes focused, and he knew in that instant that he would die horribly.

A face was poking out from behind the debris. A mare’s face, dotted with two yellow, cat-like eyes that reflected in the light of the lamp and somehow managed to focus on both of the twins at once. The gray mare was barely visible, but she was breathing heavily. Panting in anticipation.

“Kiiiiiiick iiiiiitttt,” she whispered. Then she giggled. “Kiiiiiiick iiiiiitttt…”

This time, both of the stallions screamed as though they had been gelded in infancy. Then they ran, plunging into the night with reckless abandon.

They were tall, and they sprinted quickly for unicorns. Yet they could not have picked a worse night. The moon was not full, but almost was- -and the face of the Mare in the Moon glared at them, as if watching them. Both could not help but suddenly be aware of the legends that their mother (who hated them both) had told them during their childhood of an immortal, cannibalistic mare trapped in that moon, a mare whose evil was only rivaled by her sexiness. A mare that would now watch them and see that they receive their punishment due for scorning something or other.

Then something passed over the moon. Something dark and feathery.

Flam screamed and ground to a stop, barely managing to pull his brother back by his withers.

“LOOK!”

The entire dirt-paved street was lined with buckets. And endless sea of them. Silent. And waiting.

“We have to go back, we can’t- -” Flim turned, and screamed, for the buckets had encircled them. Both paths of the road were completely full.

“Kiiiickkk iiiitttt,” whispered a voice from the trees. The pair looked to see the mare with the golden eyes peeking out from a shrub, now with neither eye looking at anything in particular.

“Into the woods! QUICK!”

The pair of stallions leapt off the path and into the forest. It was not the first time they had been chased through a forest, although it certainly ranked in their top ten. Somehow it was worse when the entire population of a town was not behind them with pitchforks and torches. They had no idea who- -or WHAT- -was pursuing them, or why. Nor did they know which direction it was coming from.

They suddenly burst into a clearing and screamed, nearly running into a mare- -but not the one chasing them. That one was gray and made of pure, muffin-scented evil. This one was a thin orange teenager with freckles and a hat. And a shovel. Standing over a hole that she was digging. In the dead of night.

“You- -you have to help us!” cried Flim. “We’re being chased by- -by- -um…what are you doing?”

She leaned in so close that they could smell her freckles. “Ahm’ digging a HOLE.”

Both the twins whinnied, wept, and ran, leaving the mare alone with her hole. They disappeared once again into the woods.

“It’s happening just like dad said it would!” said Flim through his tears. “It’s a town full of crazed rednecks! They’re going to put yokes on us and force us to plow fields!”

“Or make us dance at a hoe-down! I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!”

The two suddenly burst into the edge of town. They slowed.

“Okay, okay,” gasped Flim. He was not a fit pony. At all. “We’re here! Somepony will help us here!”

Except he was wrong. No pony would help them. When they arrived, they found the town completely and utterly deserted. It was barely ten o’clock- -but every pony in this particular well-behaved small town had long-since gone to bed.

This left the streets empty, dusty, and silent. As Flim and Flam walked quickly through the moonlit darkness, they began to grow more and more nervous. Their panting filled their ears- -as well as the heavy, excited breathing of a third pony.

“Where…where is everypony?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Flam looked around. “There- -there has to be a constable! A police station- -”

“There isn’t! That’s why we chose this town!”

“Then an all-night diner- -Celestia’s shivering withers, I’d even take the one where that hairless weirdo works!”

“I think- -yeah, I think I know where that is! It HAS to be open!”

They started- -but were suddenly driven to a halt at the top of a long main road. There, standing at the far end, partially obscured by mist, was a single bucket.

Flim grabbed Flam. “Did…did it see us?”

“It’s a bucket!” whispered Flam. “It can’t see!”

“No,” said the gray mare snuggled between them. “But it does want to be kiiiiiickkked…”

They both screamed and ran down a side alley.

“Help us! HELP! Won’t sompeony PLEASE HELP!”

Yet nopony did. In fact, the situation promptly grew worse as the alley was blocked off by a horde of buckets- -and, lying between them, two dead ponies.

Flim squealed. Flam squeaked. Both had not known what the buckets were for, but now they knew: they were for death. And nothing else. As had befallen this blue, rainbow-maned mare, and the purple mare a few meters from her.

They ran, this time in the opposite direction, yowling all the way, the volume of their shrieks drowned out as they trampled through a small horde of buckets, upturning them loudly.

As they did, Rainbow Dash snorted and woke up. She sat up slowly, rubbing the back of her head. “Ugh…” she said. “Why is my bed…hey wait a second, where am I?” She looked up at the dark sky and the moon. “GOSH DARN IT! I knew I should have reinforced my floor! Now I’m gonna need to steal cloud joists…” She sighed and turned to the purple earth-mare nearby. “Hey, why are you here?”

The mare responded by raising a shaking hoof and shaking a now almost completely empty bottle of “punch”.

“Oh-ho! Neat! Are you gonna finish that?”

Berry Punch shrugged and threw the bottle to Rainbow Dash. She sipped it as she became aware of Derpy picking up the buckets.

“Hey there,” mumbled Rainbow Dash, unable to look directly at there.

“Hey there Rainbow Dash,” said Derpy. She eyed the bottle, or at least tried to. Then she frowned. “If I was your mother, I’d spank you for drinking that.”

Rainbow Dash thought about that for a moment, and her wings immediately pomfed. Berry Punch laughed at her.

“Great,” she grumbled as Derpy vanished into the night. “Just great…”