Chapter 4: The Greatest Day of Her Life
Chapter 4
The Greatest Day of Her Life
“Why, look, I was right!” Withers Deathray cackled with sadistic joy at the sound of Derpy's terrified voice. “Hide-and-Seek is over, now. I win!”
Derpy didn't move. She didn't even think. She was numb, staring with her crossed eyes at the rock which had tripped her.
“I'm not coming in after you, Ms. Hooves. I can just collapse the cave, if you would like. I can always have my pets dig the diamond out for me.” Another kick, another shower of dirt. “Of course, I'd rather you save me the time and trouble. Be a good little filly, now; just bring me my diamond, and I'll let you go. You might even be able to make it to Ponyville with time enough to warn everypony; not that anyone would believe a cross-eyed delivery pony spouting nonsense about insane old unicorns with deathrays. Then again, you don't have to tell them anything. You could just run away. You seem to be quite good at that!”
Deathray cackled at his own joke, then spat the words “Now, come out!” as he augured his machine’s bird foot once again into the hillside. This time, the kick was especially hard, and derpy was coated mane to tail in a layer of dry, sandy dirt. She screamed, more in anger than fear, this time, and Deathray laughed maniacally.
“I'll give you one minute to decide, then I'm bringing the roof down on your gray, little head.”
Derpy shook her head to clear some of the dirt from her mane. It was over. If she just gave him the diamond, she might have time to get Dinky out of town.
NO! I won't let this happen! I have to make a break for it!
Futile, and she knew it. The entrance to the cave would be surrounded with the statues by now, and Deathray would have his horn pointed right at her. She wouldn't make it four steps.
Stupid Derpy. Stupid cave! Stupid diamond! Stupid rock!
“The rock!” Derpy's face lit up.
“What was that, Ms. Hooves?” I didn't quite hear you!
The rock, still right in front of Derpy's face, was almost exactly the same size as the diamond. It might fool Deathray for a couple of seconds.
Yeah right, Derps. It was a poorly-conceived plan, even for her, but she had to try something.
“I'm... coming out. Just let me get myself loose. I'm a little stuck.”
“You have until I lose my patience.”
Derpy flopped around awkwardly in the enclosed space, quickly swapping the diamond to her muffin bag. Then, she dropped the rock into her delivery bag. She was just about to close the flap when she noticed her clipboard and remembered that she would need to give it to Boxxy. It seemed like a foolish thing even to worry about at a time like this, but she quickly took it out and placed it alongside the diamond in the other bag.
“Okay. I'm coming out, now.”
As Derpy emerged from the cave, covered in dust, she realized that the situation was even more dire than she had supposed. The statues were everywhere – at least two dozen of them. She had been wrong in supposing she wouldn't have made it four steps.
Wouldn't have been two.
The statues closed in towards her slowly, and her blood ran cold.
“Be good, children. Ms. Hooves has given us the most entertaining day we've had in decades, after all.” The statues halted in their tracks, and Derpy began to remove her saddlebags.
“Oh, no! Not like that. Bring it up here. I want you to give it to me, personally.” Derpy could tell just from the sound of his voice that he was smiling his toothless, superior smirk. Derpy flapped her wings and lifted herself up to the level of the contraption's deck. It was much like a large boat, about twenty paces long, with a wheel and many levers on a raised deck at its rear. Deathray stood amidst these controls, manipulating them via his impressive telekinetic ability. Derpy lit on the prow, and began to remove her saddlebags.
“No, no. Bring it here. To me.” The tone of Deathray's last two words reminded Derpy of her own voice when she was scolding Dinky. She was really starting to hate this evil little unicorn.
She walked sternward, towards the port side of two staircases which led to the control deck. On the way she passed a huge hatch which she assumed must conceal the hot air balloon that held the machine aloft when it was in flight. Slowly, she ascended the stairs, one by one. Once she reached the top she stopped, and removed her saddlebags. Deathray, purely for his own twisted amusement, rolled the airship's wheel to starboard, and the deck pitched itself violently so that Derpy began to slide towards him. As she slid, beating her wings to keep from falling, the wheel stopped glowing. Released from Deathray's telekinetic grip, it rolled automatically back to a neutral position, leveling out the deck just so that she stopped sliding right in front of the wicked, little unicorn.
“My diamond, please.”
Derpy dropped her saddlebags, put her hoof on the belt, slid her delivery bag off by her teeth, and dropped it at Deathray's hooves. It hit the deck with an audible thunk. Quickly, she picked up the remaining saddlebag, and strapped it around her waist. Deathray watched her calmly, still smirking. Once her remaining bag was secure, Derpy turned to go.
“You don't actually think I'll let you walk away before I see it, do you?” The same smirking, self-assured tone pervaded Deathray's voice.
“It's in there,” Derpy said.
“You're lying. I can hear it in your voice, and moreover, I can sense the diamond in the bag you're still wearing. I guess it would have been too much to expect an intelligent plan from somepony named 'Derpy.' Did you actually think this cute little prank would work?”
Derpy turned around slowly, her face contorted into a mask of wall-eyed contempt. She'd had enough of this psychotic little runt.
“Well, no... but this might.” Derpy reached out and rolled the wheel downward with her left foreleg. As the deck pitched, Deathray stumbled, too concerned with keeping his balance to do anything about the spinning wheel. Derpy lifted herself off the deck with several quick oscillations of her wings, and putting her forehooves on the back of Deathray's head, shoved it forward, jamming his horn in the spokes of the spinning wheel. The wheel stopped; Deathray's horn was locked tightly in place against its pedestal by the tension of whatever mechanism made it automatically return to center when released. Derpy half-ran, half flew up the listing deck, stumbling over and activating a random lever as she passed it. The chicken legs began to backpedal, and the deck rolled and pitched beneath the two ponies. As she hopped over the railing to stand on the side of the airship, now more horizontal to the earth than the deck, she heard Deathray's voice.
“Help!” Derpy looked down through the railing. Deathray hung helpless, suspended by his horn.
“The fuel will ignite when it falls! I'll be cooked alive!” He was flailing his legs, trying to free himself from the wheel's grip. “PLEASE!” His voice cracked, and he sobbed in genuine terror.
Something in Derpy wanted her to leap to the sky and leave Deathray to his fate, but something else – the better part of her – simply would not let her do it. She was a mother, and this tiny, terrified, and now weeping unicorn with a squeaky voice, old and evil though he may be, simply reminded her too much, somehow, of her little, purple foal. Derpy's eyes straightened up, and without a thought, she leapt the railing and slid down next to Deathray, her body bent so far back that her haunches almost touched the deck as she slid. She braced herself against the wheel’s pedestal, and forcing her rear hoof against a spoke, she gave it enough slack to free Deathray from its grip. Then, she wrapped her forelegs around his middle and hammered at the air with her wings. She had barely cleared the deck when the machine finally backed into a twisted old oak tree, and toppled to the ground. There was a silence of a few moments, then it exploded into a gigantic fireball. The blast wave pushed Derpy and Deathray high into the air, and sent them end over end. Somehow, Derpy managed not to drop the little unicorn.
Derpy gained control of her body's position just before they hit the ground, and she managed to place herself between the old pony and the cold, hard earth. They slid some distance before Derpy felt her back slam into something that was all at once punishingly hard and mercifully soft, like a hard plate that gave when her body pressed against it.
She dropped Deathray to the ground, and sat there, her back against the strange wall that had halted her skid. She was utterly exhausted and in every kind of pain imaginable. A quick wiggle of her wings and legs confirmed that she was still whole and able to move, and Deathray was likewise getting to his hooves.
“Well, I am impressed Ms. Hooves.” There was not a hint of irony in Deathray's voice. “You really are something special.”
Derpy did not respond. She just rested against the strange, soft-hard surface, which, curiously, seemed to be slowly expanding and contracting.
“All the same, however, you must understand that I cannot simply let you walk away with my life's work.” The unicorn's glasses had fallen off in the impact, and he was slowly sliding his hooves over the ground in an effort to find them.
“But, I just saved your life!” Derpy shook her head, exasperated. As she did so, something horrifying came into the corner of her eye.
“I know! And I'm very grateful. Now I will be able to complete my creation.” His hoof was getting close to the cracked pair of glasses which lay nearby. Until he found them, though, only Derpy would know that the surface they had come to rest against was the same green dragon that had earlier that day tried to eat her.
And it's still alive, thought the cross-eyed Pegasus. What was worse, it was waking up. She could feel it rolling against her back, and she pushed herself forward and onto her hooves.
“Now, now. Don't think about trying to run away. I've had quite enough of this.” Deathray's statues had found them, now, and were forming a semi-circle around the ponies, preventing Derpy from moving away from the green behemoth that even then was coming to its senses. She thought about flying, but quickly realized that if she tried, one of the iron unicorns would strike her from the air with a spell. She was trapped -- again.
Deathray continued speaking as he searched for his spectacles. “I will repay your favor by letting you go, but ONLY if you give me my diamond.”
Derpy's eyes were fixated on the dragon’s mammoth green head, which lay nearby, curled around beside its semi-conscious body. Its face was covered in scratches, and it had an enormous black eye. It was the other eye, however, that popped open at Deathray's use of the word “diamond.” At that moment, Deathray found his glasses.
“Ah.” He turned towards Derpy even as he lifted the glasses telekinetically to his face. “Now,” he said, “will you please give me my diamond, or do I have to demonstrate the spell upon which my deathray's principle is founded?” The unicorn's horn seemed to shift out of visual focus as he spoke, like a picture taken with a cheap camera. As it did so, the dragon's huge nostrils expanded in a mighty sniff. His nose turned towards Derpy, and his one open eye fixed itself upon her. Deathray still had not noticed him, so intent was he on charging up his death spell.
“Here, it's yours!” Derpy wasn't sure if she was speaking to the dragon or the unicorn as she frantically dug the diamond out of her bag, and pitched it to the ground.
“Well,” Deathray said, his horn returning to focus. “You're not as stupid as you look, Ms Hooves.”
Derpy stared wall-and-wide-eyed at the dragon as Deathray craned his head down and took the diamond in his teeth.
“Nopony is as stupid as I look,” she said.
Deathray lifted his head, the diamond in his mouth, and began to turn the opposite direction. Halfway through his turn, he came face-to-face with the dragon. His eyes went wider than Derpy's own, and the diamond dropped from his mouth. Before it had even hit the ground, the dragon struck like a cobra. Deathray and the gem disappeared in a crunch that resonated through Derpy's bones. The statues crumpled instantaneously to the ground, their weird life force extinguished with that of their creator.
The dragon turned its eye towards the pegasus. Her face bore a small, peaceful smile which did not quite reach her eyes.
“Momma loves you, Dinky," said Derpy, softly. "Be a good girl.”
She rocked gently left and right, overcome with a surreal sense of exhaustion, apathy, and satisfaction. Ponyville and Dinky would both have a future. Derpy Hooves just wouldn't be a part of it.
“Hmm?” The dragon raised the brow above its functional eye inquisitively.
“Nothing... You can eat me, now.”
“Why would I eat you?” The dragon's voice was loud, even at conversational volume, and had a timbre like gravel grating on steel. “You smell like sweat and dirt and burnt hair and... cake or something. Disgusting. All I wanted was the diamond. That little fool should have had the sense not to come between a dragon and his meal.”
The dragon lifted itself to its feet, and pressed its huge wings against the air. Slowly, it lifted into the sky, and was gone. Derpy did not think. She did not move. She did not weep for joy, nor shout for it. She just breathed.
Derpy Hooves stood alone in the Everfree Forest, and breathed.
* * *
True to his word, Boxxy had allowed Derpy to go home early when she had returned with the signed clipboard. He had chastised her for losing her delivery bag, but compared to what she had endured that day, it had seemed mild.
She'd gone home to bathe the sweat and dirt off of her exhausted body, and was now trotting towards the schoolhouse. Getting off work early meant she could meet Dinky when she got out of class. She'd had enough time to make herself a sandwich, but after this day, it had hardly filled her roaring stomach. She was tempted to let Dinky walk home with her friends, as usual, and head straight for Sugar Cube Corner, but for some reason, food didn’t seem so important at the moment -- not even muffins.
Just as she arrived at the door, she heard the chiming of the bell, and Cheerilee's voice declaring “Class dismissed.” A dozen excited foals dashed past her on their way home, and last of all emerged Dinky, trotting beside her teacher.
Cheerilee's fuchsia face brightened at the sight of her pupil's mother. “Oh, hello, Ms. Hooves. Short day at work, I see. I hope it was a good one!”
Derpy paused before responding. “I think it might have been the greatest day of my life.”
“That’s how I feel every time the school bell rings!” Cheerilee cantered off down the path back to town.
“Momma, Momma! I made you something!” Dinky ran up to her mother, shut her eyes tight, and bit her lower lip. Her tiny horn glowed, and out of her school bag emerged a glowing piece of paper. It bore a crude, crayon image of a gray pegasus with a yellow mane and tail, bubbles for a cutie mark, and a pair of crossed, yellow eyes. She was balancing a muffin on her hoof.
Derpy took the paper in her teeth, and tucked it back into Dinky's school bag.
“I love it! Keep it where it'll be safe until we get home, and I'll put it somewhere I can see it every day.” She nuzzled her daughter, then pressed her snout into her purple neck and rubbed it back and forth, tickling her mercilessly.
Dinky giggled, and hopped away from her mother's playful attack. “Can we go to Sugar Cube Corner?”
The gray pegasus gleamed. “I was just about to suggest the same thing!”
Dinky shouted, “I'll race you!” Then ran off in a cloud of dust, headed for the bakery.
Derpy Hooves sighed through a weary smile. She giggled to herself as she watched her daughter's awkward, short-legged gallop for a few moments more, and then she ran after her.
finem
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Is that supposed to be 'grouchy?'
1431662
No, "crotchety" is a word. Here's the definition from the American College Dictionary.
Crotchety: capriciously stubborn or eccentric; perverse.
I uh... I was going with the "capriciously stubborn or eccentric" definition, here. Though how Boxxy would even know he was crotchety is anyone's guess. Maybe he used some kind of telepathy to ask him why his package was late, or maybe there are just stories about him, or something. I dunno. Gonna leave that question in the fridge, where it belongs.
Also, thanks for reading and commenting, everyone!
This is great. I've only just finished chapter 2 and I am thoroughly enjoying myself.
1431791
Then forgive me. Continue...
1431903
Forgive what? Nothing to worry about.
Very nice treatment of Ditsy/Dinky, and much better than mine. (I made a mess out of mine) Have a happy thumb-up.
1431662 ME GUSTA
jk
Just a little reminder that, sometimes, it falls to the simplest and humblest of beings to save the day. We can all be a hero, if we dare to try and if we remember that it is up to us, not some one (or somepony) else.
This was a lovely story and deserves recognition. You manage to dignify the character of Derpy without losing her characteristic goofiness, eccentricity and clumsy nature. That is an achievement in its own right! Overall this is a great bit of work and I enjoyed reading it. Thanks for sharing!
You have done more for Derpy then anyone I know, you keep who she is intacted and made her a hero of her own right...she survived, I was honestly not expecting that but I'm very glad that she did, this has got to be my most favorite Derpy story ever you did very, very well...your going to be famous one day and when you are, remember Derpy Hooves
1433392 Very, very true, BROHOOF!
Dude, this is a masterpiece. I haven't had so much fun reading a fiction in ages. You sir, have crafted a magnificent short story that creates an extraordinary hero out of someone who is supposed to be the laughing stock of the fandom. Thank you for sharing this story with us. It was a pleasure to read.
Have a mustache.
Derpy seems remarkably intelligent, or have I just been judging her too harshly in the past?
Anyway, good story, and Derpy's love for DInky made me d'aww. I'm not sure if the "grabbing the metal statue" would have worked, though; I think it would have just fried her.
I really liked this story! Kept me hooked right until the end
Great job!
This is completely epic. Excellent writing, only the very rare error in grammar, nothing serious enough for me to remember its location or its nature. Combine that with the fact that the story centers around my favorite background pony, and you have one hell of a fanfic.
Also, I feel the need to share Derpy-related heart explosions.
denver.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/img/mlfw4670-Derpy_Hooves_-_super_adorable_cute_filly_animated.gif
I just want to say thanks to everyone who has read this and commented.
Now for a shameless plug.
I have another story up, currently, called "The Sun Eater." If you have "mature" filtered out, you won't be able to see it, but it's NOT a clopfic. The reason it's rated mature is mostly for violence, language, and substance abuse. If that's not your thing, then by no means should you read it, but if you don't mind a darker take on MLP:FiM, you might like it. It's essentially an experiment that I did to see what would happen if I wrote a fairly long piece of MLP:FiM fanfiction while reading the complete works of H.P. Lovecraft. Since that necessitated some headier, more adult-oriented concepts, I sort of created an alternate Equestria that's much grittier and more real. Since I had already done that, I decided to go ahead and deal with some pretty brutal issues. It took me about nine months to write and edit, and in my opinion is one of the best pieces of writing I've ever done, fanfic or otherwise.
I'm actually glad that I decided to post this older story so that people can see that I'm not just about the darker side of things. Truth be told, I'd much rather live in the canonical version of Equestria than the one I depict in "The Sun Eater." If you do like my style, though, give it a look. Just keep in mind that it's NOT this story, and therefore has a somewhat different narrative style, even from within my own voice.
Once again, thanks for reading this piece, and stay on the lookout. I might be compelled to continue with "The Misadventures of Derpy Hooves," given the reception this particular story has experienced. Of course, if I write any more stories in this series, they will all be in the same G-rated and/or Everyone-rated format, so that no one should find anything about them offensive.
Just don't expect them too often. I keep myself busy with a lot of real-world, non-pony projects, and just do this when my mind needs a break from those.
I always liked Derpy, but now I declare Derpy is Second Best Pony.
This story was wonderful. Derpy as hero isn't something I thought I'd ever see, but she earned it. And you kept it within the spirit of the show as well!
Definately a favorite! Well done! Very, very well done!
Fantastic. I must find more Derpyfic!
3411726
Well, there's "A Nice Cup of Tea," which I wrote a few days ago. It's basically Derpy meets pirates. Going to write another one soon, where Derpy runs into... someone... from the series. Should be fun, but I'm keeping who it is and what happens kind of hush.
Thanks for reading my stuff. Glad you enjoyed it.
Deathray cackled at his own joke, then spat the words “Now, come out!” as he augured his machine’s bird foot once again into the hillside. This time, the kick was especially hard, and Derpy was coated mane to tail in a layer of dry, sandy dirt. She screamed, more in anger than fear, this time, and Deathray laughed maniacally.
Loved it. All the right notes in all the right places. This story is like a warm hug.
Thanks for writing!
6671622 Thanks for the kind words.
You came in at a bit of an odd time. There are several other stories in this series, some (really most) of which are darker and more serious than this one (no gore or anything like that, but still, more serious.) I'm actually writing what will be the final entry in this series, and probably my final piece of Pony fic of any substantial length, ever. I don't know when it will post, and to be honest, I'm having trouble making myself finish it -- which is part of the reason it's time for me to stop writing ponies. The other part is that I have, over the years, become a much better writer, and have begun to write professionally. Such being the case, any amount of creative effort that I put into fanfic now costs me time, energy, and most importantly ideas that I would otherwise use in writing my original fiction.
That said, I'm glad you liked this story, and I'd be glad for you to read the rest of the stories in the series, including the last one, once it posts.
And yes, it's kind of late for editing on these. I was going to go back through and try to bring them up to my current standard, but I can barely make myself write the one I'm working on to the standards I now hold for myself as a writer. As such, I imagine these stories will get very little revision from their current forms.
I'm still glad I wrote these, though. This interpretation of Derpy Hooves is the first time I ever really took a character through a full, lengthy arc.
Thanks for reading, and if you read the others, let me know what you think. It might be what I need to encourage me to finish the last one.