Ponies discover duct tape. what else is there to say?
When a mysterious silver sticky material falls from the sky, Derpy and Rainbow Dash try to find out where it came from, with Twilight's help. Sticky chaos will reign...with some help from everypony's favorite mailmare.
It seemed like another normal day. The sun was shining, though the pegasi had started gathering clouds for the scheduled shower later that afternoon. Derpy was delivering the mail, when something hit her on the head.
"Ouch! That hurt!" she exclaimed. She looked up, but couldn’t see anypony who might have dropped something. She looked around, trying to determine where the unknown projectile had come from. "Hello? Who threw this at me?" she asked. Nopony answered.
She looked at the shiny, silvery roll on the ground. "I've never seen anything like it." she thought. "Well, since I'm near the library, I might as well see if Twilight knows anything about it. She knows everything."
She started trotting towards the library, when suddenly, Rainbow Dash shot past her before turning around, gliding back, and landing on the ground next to her.
"Hey Derpy! Do you have any new packages for me?" she asked expectantly.
"No, I don't. Sorry Dash."
"Ugh! That ad said to wait four to eight weeks for delivery and it's been seven weeks, one day, twenty-two hours, forty-eight minutes, and eleven seconds- but really, who's counting?" She sighed, with an annoyed edge to her tone. "I hope that they don't deliver it late. They've never sent anything late to me before!" A few moments passed before Dash broke the silence. "Well, I'd better be going. I'll see you later, Derpy!"
She lifted off, but before she flew away, she noticed something and paused. "Hey Derpy, what's that around your hoof?"
"Well, uh, I'm not exactly sure. See I was going to ask Twilight if she knew what it was. It fell out of the sky and hit me on the head. Do you want to come with me?"
"Sure!" Dash replied. "I've never seen anything like it before, but Twilight will probably know everything about it!"
Derpy and Rainbow Dash took off and flew towards the library, Dash flying slowly to allow Derpy to keep up without crashing and dropping the silvery roll.
On their way to the library, Rainbow Dash flipped through her mail. "Water bill, ugh. It’s always so expensive. You’d think that living in a cloud would make water cheaper."
"Sorry Dash!" Derpy replied. "I don't make the mail, I just deliver it!" She giggled happily.
"Hay, wait a minute!" Dash exclaimed. "What's this?" Dash held up a pristine white envelope with no return address.
"I don't know, Dash! Open it!"
Dash rolled her eyes. "Why do you care about my mail? It's my mail, isn't it?"
"I know Dash, but it's the only nice envelope I've seen today!"
"Okay, then I'll open it." Rainbow Dash opened the envelope and pulled out a neatly folded piece of paper marked with the Wonderbolts' insignia.
"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh!" Dash squeed excitedly, landing so that she could read it more easily. "I've been waiting so long for this!"
"Read it!" Derpy urged, gliding down after her before landing erratically and stumbling into a tree, sticking out her tongue while her eyes lost focus momentarily.
Rainbow Dash sighed. "Derpy, is it your lifetime goal to crash into every tree in Ponyville?"
"Sorry, Dash, I just don't know what went wrong!" she replied, trotting back over to where Dash was.
"Yeah, me neither." Dash muttered under her breath, rolling her eyes before she excitedly opened the letter and began reading.
“Dear Miss Rainbow Dash, I am sorry to inform you that you were not selected to participate in this year's Wonderbolts tryouts. I wish you better luck for next year. Sincerely, the captain of the Wonderbolts, and your biggest fan, Spitfire.
PS: Sorry for making this letter so formal, I had to, my agent said it was some sort of 'legal issue'.
“Yeah right.”
PSS: Fireflash, Soarin and I all say hello from Fillydelphia! Fireflash says he misses you.”
"I'm so sorry, Dash!” said Derpy. "I hope you make it next year!"
"Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmy-"
"Dashie? Are you okay?" Derpy said.
"mygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygo-"
"Dashie?!" Derpy repeated.
"ohmygoshohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh-"
"DASHIE!" Derpy screamed, jumping up and down.
"Oh. My Gosh!"
"Dashie, why are you so happy? I thought you didn't make it!"
"I don't care! Spitfire said that SHE was MY biggest fan. AND Soarin and Fireflash say hi." She sighed happily. "I miss FireFlash too, it's been almost a month since I've seen him."
"Can we get back to what I was doing, Dash? We still don't know what this thingy is." Derpy said, holding up the roll.
It didn't take Dash and Derpy long to reach the library. Derpy was about to put Twilight's mail in the mailbox, but Dash held out her hoof to stop her.
"Just give it to her, Derpy."
"Oh, right. Good idea, Dashie." Derpy giggled at her silly mistake, while Dash rolled her eyes and facehoofed.
They were about to go inside when Derpy tripped over the door-saddle and dropped her mailbag. "Whoops!" she exclaimed, as mail spilled everywhere.
"Let me help you with that," Rainbow said, starting to pick up the spilled letters. They were almost done when Derpy noticed the address on the one she had just picked up. "Hey Dashie! I have another letter for you! It's from Fireflash!"
"GIMME!" Dash threw her hoofful of mail into Derpy's bag and rushed over at full speed, grabbing the letter out of Derpy's hoof. She immediately tore it open and started reading.
"Dear Rainbow Dash, I really miss you a lot, so I asked Spitfire if I could leave Fillydelphia early to come and see you. I know that I'll miss the after-show party this weekend, and we do a lot of fun... stuff there, but it'll be worth missing the fun to see you. I'll be there Friday! I love you, my little Dashie. See you soon, Fireflash."
"Ooh if this weren't from FireFlash, I'd chew him out for calling me ‘my little Dashie’. I'll get him for that later, but only he can get away with it - and even then only sometimes."
"Can we just get on with things and ask Twilight what this stuff is?" complained a clearly irritated Derpy, holding up the shiny roll. "I keep getting interrupted by you reading your mail."
"Uh...did I read that out loud?" Dash said, her face turning red.
"Oh, don't hide it," Derpy replied, smiling. "Everypony already knows that you two are dating. It's no big secret. We were going to throw a party at his house a few weeks ago - the door wasn't locked when we arrived, so we assumed he was home. Anyway, there was a letter from you and an unfinished one from him on the desk in his study."
"So all of Ponyville knows?" Rainbow said, turning redder.
Derpy nodded, smiling happily. "Yeah, pretty much. We're all happy for you two though, you're perfect for each other. Now let's go talk to Twilight."
"Okay."
Derpy knocked on the door and they waited for a few seconds, but after receiving no response, Derpy knocked again. They waited a little more but Twilight still didn't answer; Derpy reached out to knock a third time, but Dash blocked her with her hoof.
"Allow me," Dash said, stepping forward before turning around and bucking the door open. The hinges bent and the door dropped off its frame, to reveal Twilight standing inches away from the door, her eyes wide.
"Oh my... are you okay?" Rainbow asked nervously.
"I...I'm fine, Rainbow. Just... really, really startled. Oh, and you WILL be the one to fix my door," Twilight replied, eyes narrowed.
Rainbow laughed weakly, clearly unhappy with this turn of events.
"So, why are you two here, and what could possibly be important enough to be worth breaking down my door? I can answer any question you have!" Twilight said, holding her head up high.
Derpy answered, "Well I have your mail, of course, but I also found this thingy!" She waved the shiny roll. "What is it?"
Twilight took a quick look, her expression turning into a frown. "Okay, almost any question."
Rainbow was shocked. "You mean you don't know what this is?! But you're an egghead! You know about everything in Equestria!"
"But I’m pretty sure this isn't from Equestria," Twilight replied.
"WHAT?" Rainbow gasped.
"Don't worry, I have a book on foreign items in here somewhere..." Twilight looked around the library, searching for the right book, as Rainbow and Derpy waited expectantly.
"Ah, here it is." Twilight said, reaching for a book near the top shelf. "Foreign Objects and their History in Equestria."
"Okay, so what does it say?"
"Twilight flipped rapidly through the book, her horn glowing as she skimmed through the pages until she found the relevant one. "Ah! Here it is!"
Twilight read the entry. “Named 'duct tape', it is used on the human world ‘Earth’ as an adhesive, as it is very strong and sticky when unraveled. Like all objects from other worlds, it can only appear when the fourth wall has been recently broken.”
The three exchanged glances. There was no doubt who was to blame. As expected, or not, Pinkie appeared out of nowhere, still her usual, bouncy self.
"Well, it wasn't me! You know that, right?"
"PIIIINKIEEEEEE!" Twilight yelled.
"What?" Pinkie replied, as she stopped bouncing around the library.
“You're making it worse! Can you do your bouncing and fourth wall breaking someplace else?"
"Okiedokielokie!" Pinkie replied, bouncing out the door.
"So as I was saying, this is known as duct tape, and has sticky properties when unraveled. It can only appear when the fourth wall has been broken, and once the damage to the wall is mended, all objects transferred between worlds will vanish."
"So this is duck tape?" Dash asked.
"Duct tape," Twilight corrected, turning away from Rainbow.
"You said it has 'sticky' properties?" Dash asked, a mischievous grin forming on her face.
"Yes, duct tape can be used to stick almost anything together," Twilight replied. "When Pinkie broke the fourth wall, a whole stack of it appeared over there." Twilight turned around and pointed to a pile behind Rainbow, before noticing the grin on her face.
"Oh no. Don't you dare, Rainbow. Whatever you're planning, don't you dare do it!"
"W-what are you doing?" Twilight whimpered, backing away.
"Don't worry, we'll only leave you for a few minutes." Dash replied, as she and Derpy advanced on Twilight. After a couple of minutes, they had backed her up against the wall and taped her there.
"Let me down!" Twilight demanded.
"We will, we will," Dash replied, "but first I want to try something."
She placed a piece of tape over Twilight's eyes and mouth, and stepped back. Twilight waved her hooves wildly in an attempt to free herself, before Dash decided to tape her legs to the wall as well.
"This is going to be the greatest prank ever!" Dash squealed happily. She flew over to a table and placed the books that had been on it onto the floor. She then picked up the table.
She held it to the ceiling upside-down and signaled to Derpy, who flew up and taped it in place.
"Now the lamp!" Dash whispered, glancing over at Twilight cautiously, checking to make sure that she couldn't hear them. Her ears were twitching, but never angled towards where Derpy was now taping the lamp to the table.
Dash picked up the stack of books that had originally been on top up the table, and taped the whole stack there, right next to the lamp where they had originally been. Dash looked around the room before whispering in Derpy's ear.
"Derpy, you finish down here. I'll do the upstairs."
Derpy got to work inverting the bookshelves as Dash flew upstairs to Twilight's bedroom. Derpy was hard at work flipping all the books on the shelves upside down, when Twilight finally decided to intervene.
"Mhmmhfmm!" she mumbled through her duct tape gag.
Derpy turned around at the sound, her eyes losing focus and traveling to the corners of her eyes. "What was that, Twi?"
"Mfh! Hmfhmm!" she said again.
Derpy walked over to her and removed the duct tape from Twilight's mouth. "Huh?"
"I said, what are you doing to the library! And where did Rainbow Dash go?"
Unable to come up with a reasonable excuse, Derpy stumbled with words before replying. "I don't want to spoil the surprise." Was all that was said, after a moment of hesitation.
Twilight asked again where Rainbow Dash had gone to, pointing out that even though she couldn't see through duct tape, she didn't hear Dash trying to come up with any excuses.
"She went outside to look for more duct tape." Derpy replied.
Twilight found nothing wrong with Derpy's statement. "Okay, I believe you." Twilight said.
Derpy went back to inverting the furniture, being sure not to make any noise.
Suddenly, a crash came from Twilight's bedroom.
"What was that?" Twilight asked, worried that it might have been something valuable.
Derpy flew up to the top of the stairs before replying, covering for Dash. "My bad!" she called down.
"What fell? And did it break?" Twilight repeated.
Derpy looked into Twilight's bedroom to see that Dash had finished with everything except a vase, which had fallen and shattered on impact. "It's just a vase." Derpy answered. "I'm sorry I broke it..."
"Now the more important question. What were you doing in my bedroom?"
"Just working on more of the prank." Derpy replied.
"Okay. And don't worry, the vase wasn't expensive. Just clean it all up."
"Okay!" Derpy turned to Rainbow Dash, who had not said anything during the entire exchange, listening instead. "Thanks for covering for me." she whispered to Derpy.
"It's fine. You still have to pay for it though. You heard our whole conversation right?" Derpy whispered back.
"Yeah."
"So you're going to fly out the window and come in the front door with a bunch of duct tape, right?"
Dash nodded, flying silently out the bedroom window, which Derpy closed carefully before going back downstairs. "Sorry Twilight." Derpy said. "I'll pay to replace it."
"It's fine, just try to be careful."
"Okay. The prank is almost ready anyways, so I'll let you down soon."
"Thank goodness." Twilight sighed. "My hooves are stiff, and it's getting frustrating not being able to see what's going on around me."
"I'm back!" Dash called, walking in the front door nochalantly.
"Oh, there you are." Twilight said. "I was wondering where you'd gone."
"Just to get more duct tape." Derpy and Rainbow Dash went back to turning the library upside down, Dash working on the furniture while Derpy turned all of the books on the bookshelves upside down.
"Done!" Derpy called, after she and Dash had finished.
Dash flew over to Twilight and removed the tape from her hooves, and led her to the middle of the room. "All right, you can look now!"
Twilight removed the blindfold with her recently freed hoof and gasped. "No...bucking...way." She collapsed onto the floor in a fit of laughter. "Ooh, you two got me, that's for sure. The good news is, once the duct tape disappears, I can just put everything back with magic."
Derpy looked confused. "What do you mean, once it's gone?"
"Anything transferred between worlds disappears when the fourth wall is repaired."
"Why can't you just remove it with your magic now?"
"There's no magic in the world where duct tape comes from, so I can't use magic on it." she said simply, flipping all of the books on her bookshelf right-side up again. "Now I just need to put an anti-gravity spell on everything so that nothing breaks or falls when the tape disappears."
"You do your magic, then we should go around and see how Ponyville is faring with the duct tape." Dash decided.
"I have to deliver more mail!" Derpy giggled, having completely forgotten. She picked up her mail bags and flew out the door.
Twilight cast her spell and walked outside with Rainbow, her eyes widening as she saw the utter chaos that ensued.
