Dynamic Doo-o
Daring Do wasn’t a pony who gave up easily. But, she admitted to herself as Glothrop and his goons sneered at them, I’m having a hard time seeing a way out of this one. She glanced at her cross-eyed companions. So maybe I need to see this from another angle.
“It was an impressive run,” Glothrop shouted, “but it ends now! Hand over the Goblet!”
Ditzy Digits scoffed. “I would never sully my hands like that!”
“Now!” roared Glothrop.
“That’s… certainly one Possibility,” said Daring. “But I think there’s another one you should consider.” She turned to face Ditzy Doo. “Specifically, the Possibility of dragons.”
Ditzy Doo looked confused, then brightened up. “Wait, you mean that could happen?”
“I think it’s in the realm of Possibility.”
Glothrop scoffed. “Oh please. You really think a dragon is just going to—”
The wall behind the griffons exploded as a great grey-scaled dragon with yellow spines and crooked eyes broke in like a rocket-powered battering ram, scattering the griffons like tenpins. Several of them tried to shoot her, but she roared and took a deep breath. Daring assumed she was going to breath fire.
She did not.
“Bubbles?” deadpanned Daring. “She breathes bubbles?” The bubbles reached the griffons but, instead of popping like expected, they blew up like artillery shells. “Bubbles that explode. Okay. Sure. Why not.”
“YES!” cheered Ditzy Doo and her Dooplicates. Or would that be Dooplegangers? “I KNEW I COULD BE A DRAGON! I FLIPPING KNEW IT!”
Ditzy Dragon rampaged through the griffon lines, wreaking havoc. Unfortunately, her havoc wreaking extended to architecture. She knocked over several pillars, which then toppled towards the other Ditzys. Because of course they did.
“Move! Move!” shouted Daring. Years of escaping self-destructing ancient temples let her lead the Ditzys safely through the falling rubble. They ended up ringed in by rubble, but unharmed. “Okay, we’ve got a makeshift rubble fort that gives us some cover while we plan our next move,” said Daring, trying to tune out the sounds of the dragon rampage.
“What next move?” demanded Ditzy Downer. “We’ll never make it to Celestia at this rate!”
“You’re right,” agreed Daring. “Which is why we need to stop the Goblet here.”
“How?” chorused the Ditzys.
“First order of business is locking this little fort down,” said Daring. “Ditzy Desperado? I need you to give one of your guns to Ditzy Downer. The two of you will give us covering fire and keep the griffons from overwhelming Ditzy Dragon.”
A distant bell tolled noon. Ditzy Desperado smiled. “A shootout at high noon, eh? I reckon I can do that.”
Ditzy Downer shrugged. “Eh. It might work.” The two of them took off.
“I want to help them,” said Ditzy Digits.
“Unfortunately, we only have two guns,” said Daring. “And the griffon trigger guards are too small for—” she looked at Ditzy’s digits, “okay, not a problem for you, but we don’t have any griffon guns here.”
There was a distant dragon roar and a Wilhoof scream that grew louder and louder until a smoke-blackened griffon landed in their midst. Daring knocked him out with a blow to the head and passed his weapon to Ditzy Digits. “Problem solved. Go nuts.”
“Woo-hoo!” cried Ditzy Digits as she ran out. “Diiiitzyyy Diiigiiiits!”
“Sweet Celestia, she just ran out there,” said a horrified Ditzy Danger.
“And the griffons won’t know what hit ’em,” Daring assured her. “Danger, I want you to go out there and think about all the things that can happen.”
“What?” replied Ditzy Danger, aghast. “But I always make things more dangerous!”
“Exactly,” said Daring. “Go make them more dangerous for the griffons.”
Danger thought for a moment, then shrugged and said, “Okay.” She flew out to join the others. A moment later, Daring heard her shout, “What if flying magical razors came and shaved your majestic fur?!”
This was followed almost immediately by a loud buzzing sound and cries of, “Oh gosh! My majestic fur!”
“What about us?” asked Ditzy Doo.
“We are gonna put our heads together and figure out a way to outfox the Goblet. And by we, I mostly mean you two.”
Ditzy Doo and Two sputtered in disbelief. “How the heck are we supposed to do that?!” exclaimed Ditzy Doo.
“Yeah!” agreed Two. “Even Clover the Clever and her husband couldn’t beat this thing! You said we need an alicorn to beat it!”
“An alicorn… or somepony who sees the world differently,” smiled Daring. “Listen, this whole adventure, I’ve been able to deal with the traps, the puzzles,” the griffon who’d been knocked into their makeshift fort started to stir, and Daring kicked him in the head, “and the fighting. But it’s been you, the Ditzys, who have benignly kept pace with having the power of Infinite Possibility at your wingtips. If Goddard had drunk that thing, the world would already be coming apart at the seams. You’ve kept us going.”
Daring leaned forward and put a reassuring hoof on each of them. “Don’t think about this how somepony like me or Clover or even Celestia would think about it. Think about it how you would.”
The two Ditzys exchanged uncertain glances as the battle raged around them. Then, Ditzy Doo said, “Well, earlier we were talking about the lead box.”
Not sure how that tracks, but I guess that’s the point. “Okay, go on.”
“And we were thinking,” said Two, “what if it ends up being the key to everything?”
Ditzy Doo nodded. “Like, it will make sense right when we need it to.”
There was a bright flash of light, and a tall blue object appeared in their makeshift fort. It looked like a shed, with a sliding door on the front and a black sign with white letters at the top that said Police Box.
“What in the world?” exclaimed Daring Do.
“Oh, hey, it looks like a blue phone booth!” said Ditzy Doo.
“What the heck is a ‘phone booth?’” asked Daring Do.
“It’s a design Doctor Time Turner is working on,” explained Ditzy Two. “He says it will revolutionize the future.”
The door slid open, and a bright light shone out. Daring couldn’t make out many details of the interior, but it definitely looked far bigger on the inside. In the doorway stood yet another Ditzy. I’m really not sure what I expected at this point. At least this one’s a pony.
New Ditzy looked much like the others, but older, perhaps in her middling years, with lines on her face and whitening in her mane. Around her neck she wore a multicolored scarf that looked entirely too long for her.
Apparently, the scarf looked familiar to the other Ditzys, because Two asked, “Hey, isn’t that Time Turner’s?”
“Is it?” replied the new Ditzy innocently.
Daring raised an eyebrow, sensing there was a story there, but pushed it aside in favor of the obvious. “And you would be…?” she asked.
“Oh, you can call me Doctor Ditzy. I’m a time traveler.”
“Of course you are,” deadpanned Daring Do.
Ditzy Doo went up to shake hooves. “Nice to meet you Doctor—” she gasped. “Wait, are you The Doctor?! Like, from the box of lead?!”
Doctor Ditzy chortled musically. “Oh heavens no. I’m just here to pick up his package.” She took the box of lead from Ditzy Two, who had obligingly brought it over. “He needs to mail it to himself yesterday.”
“Of course he does,” deadpanned Daring Do. Well, this is certainly seeing things from another angle.
“If you’re a time traveler, are you here to help us?” asked Ditzy Doo.
“I already am,” replied Doctor Ditzy. “Next I’m going to drop off a gun for an unexpected ally four minutes ago, but first I have a message for Daring Do.” Daring’s ears perked up as Doctor Ditzy turned to her. “Remember to put the phrase, ‘Sometimes the solution to the problem is the problem itself’ in the book when this is all eventually published, and to mail an advanced copy to Time Turner when the special edition of the book comes out.”
Daring raised an eyebrow. “O~kay? I guess?”
Doctor Ditzy beamed. “Perfect! That’s all you need to succeed today! Now, I gotta get going. My hubby’s cooking dinner, and I don’t wanna miss it! Bye, Daring! See you in a few days! Bye, Ditzys! Be you in a few years!”
Ditzys Doo and Two waved. “Bye, Doctor Ditzy!”
The door closed, there was a flash of light, and the Police Box was gone.
“She seemed nice,” remarked Ditzy Doo. Ditzy Two nodded in agreement.
This is gonna be the weirdest book I have ever written, thought Daring. “So… did that… help you figure out how to fix this? Please say ‘yes.’ I’m not sure how much more of this I can handle.”
Ditzy Doo and Two looked at each other, smiled, and hugged each other. “Good luck in your own reality,” said Ditzy Doo.
“Yeah, you too,” said Ditzy Two.
“Uh… is that a ‘yes?’” asked Daring.
Ditzy Doo beamed at her. “It is.” She held up the Goblet. “It’s like you’re going to put in your book: ‘Sometimes the solution to the problem is the problem itself.’”
“… meaning?”
“Did you ever consider the Possibility that this is just an ordinary Goblet?”
One moment, Daring was looking at the Goblet of Infinite Possibility, its gleaming surface alight with ever-changing color and texture. Then she blinked, and when she looked again, it was just a cup.
“Wh- what?” stammered Daring. “What just happened? What just…” it was then that she noticed the silence “… happened?”
The battle was over. The climactic-final-battle-Great-Hall was gone, replaced with a simple foyer that had been part of the original castle. Defeated griffons lay all over, but the Ditzys who had laid them low were nowhere in evidence. Only the original Ditzy Doo remained.
“What happened?” repeated Daring. “Ditzy, what happened?”
“What had to happen,” replied Ditzy, her voice triumphant, and a little sad. “The realities are all back where they’re supposed to be. The Goblet of Infinite Possibility no longer connects them, because it’s just an ordinary goblet.”
Daring. “But… it could turn back on, couldn’t it? This is just one Possibility, so it could make others manifest, right?”
“How could it do that?” asked Ditzy. “It’s just a cup.”
The two stood silently for a moment as the enormity of what Ditzy had just said washed over them. Daring was the first to break the silence with a little chortle. It grew in volume into a laugh. Ditzy joined in, and soon the two of them were laughing hysterically. “We did it!” shouted Daring as the two pranced around each other. “We did it! We did it! We saved the world! You did it, Ditzy! You and the other…” she trailed off and her prancing stopped as the absence of the other Ditzys sank in, turning the victory became bittersweet.
Ditzy rubbed at her eyes. “I’m gonna miss them.”
“Yeah,” agreed Daring, a sudden huskiness in her voice. “Yeah, me too.”
“Not for long,” growled a voice to their left.
The pair spun to see Glothrop Goddard hobbling towards them. The once-proud griffon was disheveled, battered. He looked to have been blown up, trampled, and possibly chewed on. It was astonishing he was still standing.
But the hatred in his eyes was undimmed by his injuries, and the gun he aimed at them didn’t waver.
“You… ruined… everything!” snarled the griffon. “If I can’t use the Goblet to change the world, I can at least end yours!”
His claw tightened on the trigger. Daring dove in front of Ditzy. A shot rang out, and a body crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
Daring stared at Glothrop’s body, then turned mutely to regard the stallion who’d shot him.
“He should have just paid me,” declared Doctor Caballeron as he stepped into the room, smoking revolver in one hoof. “We could have avoided this unpleasantness.” He turned his attention to Daring Do and smiled. “But then we couldn’t have this conversation.”
Daring’s eyes narrowed. “The Goblet of Infinite Possibilities is unmade, Caballeron. It’s worthless to you now.”
“Oh, this is not about the Goblet, my dear Daring Do,” smirked Caballeron. He cocked the revolver and aimed it at her. “It’s about setting things right.”
The two mares tensed.
Caballeron regarded them inscrutably for a moment, then holstered his weapon. “First and foremost, it’s about setting the future right,” he said. “It seems the both of you are important to it, at least that’s what I was told four minutes ago, and I can’t exactly turn a profit if there’s no future.”
Daring’s eyes widened. Doctor Ditzy… the gun for an unexpected ally… it was him?
Turning, Caballeron started walking deeper into the castle. “A pleasure as always, Daring Do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see about looting some priceless artifacts so this trip isn’t a total waste of my time.”
Slack-jawed, Daring watched him go. After all these years, maybe he does still… maybe… “Caballeron!” she called out. He halted, but did not turn. “It was today.”
That made him look back. “I beg your pardon?”
Oh, Celestia, do I really want to open this door? Daring bit her lip and hesitated. Pony up, girl! He just saved us! “Back in the Mad Artificer’s Chamber, you asked me when was the last time I saw you be a good stallion.” Daring swallowed. “It was today.”
The two of them stared at each other for a moment. More than once, Caballeron opened his mouth to say something. In the end he said nothing, but Daring saw tears in his eyes as he turned and walked away.
Neither Ditzy nor Daring broke the silence for a few moments. Eventually, Ditzy said, “So, uh… do you… need a minute?”
Daring gave a half smile. “No, I think I’m good.” Better than I’ve been in a while.
“Caballeron’s your friend, isn’t he?”
“He was. Once.”
Ditzy nodded. “Maybe he still is?”
Maybe, thought Daring, not trusting herself to speak. Maybe.
“It’s good to have friends,” pronounced Ditzy.
Daring smiled warmly. “Yeah, Ditzy. It is.” She looked around at the strangely quiet room. “Even if we only know them for a short while.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ditzy, a somber note in her voice.
The adventurer threw a foreleg over the grey mare’s withers. “Come on, friend. Let’s head back to civilization.”
Ditzy perked up at being called ‘friend.’ “Okay!” she said brightly. The two of them began the slow walk to the exit, taking a leisurely pace to avoid any remaining traps. “Heck of a weird delivery,” said Ditzy. “Even by Ponyville standards.”
Daring chuckled. “Good to know some things still faze you ponies.”
“Yeah,” laughed Ditzy. Then, more hesitantly, “Say… Daring?”
“Hm?”
“Do you think… do you think maybe… we could go adventuring again? You know, if you want?”
“Ditzy,” replied Daring with a grin, “I think that’s a distinct possibility.”
I hope you all enjoyed one of the most random things I've ever written. As with many things on this site, it's mostly FanOfMostEverything's fault.
You see, I wanted to enter FOME's "Most Delightful Ponidox" contest, which must involve at least one character meeting at least one other version of that character. I thought of many ideas, but none of them were feasible.
Then I remembered that, in a chapter of my story Homecoming, one of the characters referenced the fact that, during the war, Ditzy Doo ended up going on a series of adventures with Daring Do.
“Never would have happened if Ditzy Doo hadn’t gotten embroiled in that whole business with Daring Do, Caballeron, and the Goblet of Infinite Possibilities.”
FOME followed that by saying this:
"Hey, you try working with five other versions of yourself, two of whom are balding apes, and see how much collateral damage you do to causality."
... and that started the wheels turning.
You see, I'd always wanted to write a story based about Do and Doo saving the world, but I never planned to actually do it. But, with no better ideas, I decided to ask if it would be kosher to do it for this contest. I asked FOME, and this was the response:
Unless the story involves dimenional travel, the distinction between an instance from a different timeline and an echo of the could-have-been is largely academic. Probability ghosts definitely qualify as fulfilling the prompt. Also, kudos for coming up with an option I had never considered.”
Which is funny... because FOME kinda prompted all of this with that comment.
Now, some of you may be thinking, "Hey! Are you trying to bribe the judge by writing a story the judge wanted to see happen and based on an idea the judge had?!" To which I say, "No... and you're just going to have to take my word on that."
Even if I was trying to bribe the judge, I don't think it would work. For one thing, Ditzy Doo would find it thoroughly unsportsmanlike, and that is one thing I imagine FOME could not abide. 
All I can say is that I hope you enjoyed this odd foray into storytelling as much as I enjoyed writing it.
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A fantastic story from start to finish. I enjoyed every moment of it. And in particular, well done in capturing Ditzy's unique sort of cheerful wisdom.
At least she'll shoot chickens.
This does feel like pandering to the judge, but that is in no way, shape. or form a complaint. Exquisite madness throughout, with true brilliance in the kind of skewed perspective needed to handle the infinite. Thank you for it, and best of luck in the judging.
I will say I was expecting an alicorn Ditzy to show up and fix things buuuut that also works.
A wonderful tale, though. Loved the dialogue. Well done.
Indeed it is...indeed it is.
10489529
In the words of Dr. Heinz Doofenschmirtz, "Don't worry, I'll be totally impartial. In fact, I'll take a point off, just because I know you!"
10489680
10489409
Thank you!
10489999
That math checks out.
10489680
The last time I saw an alicorn Ditzy Five Score had intersected the Dresden universe and Ebanezer McCoy had caught the pony.
The alicorn princess of destruction would have been vast overkill here.
We knew you could, too!
Again, this was wonderful. A most creative and off-the-wall take on the contest prompt, too.
And I can always appreciate a Ditzy/Derpy who sees the world a little differently.
10491215
Or the walls, or the ceiling...
This hit every note of what I enjoy in an adventure story. Tropes, speed of story advancement, and the author knowing how far to push the absurdity.
Going on my favorite list.
10492809
Thank you
I'm going to remember this. Might come in handy later.
I saw that.
When you write Ditzy this well (and have a creative premise, good supporting characters and details, etc.), I submit the following equation for consideration: More Ditzy = More Better.
And this had a lot of Ditzy.
.... This is not The Amazing Yeeted Frenchman update.
10489399
Which can be found as a sub clause under The Law of Dakka
10506406
Friar Jacques thinks back to how he threw the assassin around and replies, "The Amazing Yeeting Frenchman."
10503217
Thank you. And I'm glad to know someone noticed poor Wilhoof.
That was a great solution! Ha!
And Doctor Ditzys are definitely some of my favorites. I’m glad she could help out, and provide the solution!
Well Daring, it may be strange, but your audience did say you were getting repetitive...
I’m glad to see there is still some hope for Cabelleron. Daring’s audience will too. Even if the shippers will go mad. They always do.
Throwing in my shipping war two cents on the outside bet: Doctor Ditzy/Reformed Cabelleron. She mentions she has a husband and conspicuously doesn’t name him! It’s foreshadowing! Foreshadowing I tell you!!!!! :p
Oh, and I love the bubble dragon ditzy.
The entire fic was worth it for the word ‘dooplegangers’.
10507984
I did too XD
10511957
I was pleased with 'dooplegangers.'
Loved this
*hugs her Muffins plushie*
Ah, an excellent payoff for Chekov's Dragon. :)
But this is my favorite part. :D
10861550
I'll be honest, it might be my favorite part too.