Clop, Clop, Clop, Clop, Clop!
All of Ponyville Clops
by Lucen Aurora
With thank to Dubs Rewatcher for taking the time to read the story and suggest corrections.
On his best of days, Cranky Doodle Donkey could tolerate the ponies of Ponyville. To the ponies he liked, he could manage a dour smile or a snippet of conversation. For the ponies he didn't, he could unleash a sarcastic wit sharpened by years of unwelcome kindness. Fortunately, old age had mellowed him quite a bit, making most of his days the former; fortunate for Ponyville.
Unfortunately for Ponyville it was was gripped in utter pandemonium. Which in Cranky's opinion was normal.
He had learned very quickly that Ponyville was a cosmic sinkhole for the bizarre. It was as if Princess Celestia had woken up one day, thrown a dart at a map and when it had landed on Ponyville, she had bent all her considerable power to channel everything that went wrong in the rest of Equestria into Ponyville. In fact, some ponies speculated that was exactly what was going on. After all, Ponyville had an outsized repairs budget (funded in large part by the Crown) for a town of it's size. And it was certainly needed, with the town being destroyed so frequently that the Apple Family had even had to try to win a rodeo to make up for the repair costs over and above the ridiculous budget. Not to mention, why else would you need to have all of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony living together in one little podunk town?
Whatever the reason for the days disturbance, Cranky wasn't particularly happy with being sent to try and find out what was causing it. The donkeys marefriend; had he just thought of Matilda as his marefriend? He had spent far too much time around ponies. Anyway, Matilda had sent him out to Ponyvilles library to see Twilight Sparkle to find out what was going on; with strict instructions to help her solve whatever problem was ahoof. Not to the town guard captain, not to the mayor. To the town librarian. Granted, she was the element of magic. Not that that made any difference, as he had tried to tell Matilda. You don't ask a master pianist to preform open heart surgery just because he's a master, you ask a master surgeon. So you don't ask a librarian to solve the towns problems, you go to the town officials; that is their job.
But no, here he was plodding down the main thoroughfare of town, ponies all around him, crying and wailing and generally making a ruckus, not to mention all of the distasteful sound effects. It had long since ceased to surprise Cranky what ponies did in the privacy of their own homes. Which for the life of him he couldn't understand; after all, if he suggested they do in public what they talked about doing at home, they would blush and stammer and walk away. He shook his head, it made no sense. Mares with mares, stallions with stallions, fillies running around underhoof yelling 'Cutiemark Crusaders XXX Delivery Ponies!', it was enough to make a cranky old donkey loose his lunch.
That was why he was glad when he finally reached the door of the living tree that was Ponyvilles library. Or rather, to get to the edge of a crowd of ponies trying to get into Ponyvilles library. Most of them where babbling nonsense, among them, he noted, the mayor and more than a few of Ponyvilles guards. Cranky sighed and shook his head, cutting to the front of the line by shouldering his way through the doorway to more than a few dirty looks and exclamations of anger.
The inside of the library was like a microcosm of the town. Papers where strewn everywhere, books where lying open where they had been dropped, quills and bottles and a few half eaten sandwiches littered the tables and in the middle of it all with a maelstrom of literature swirling around her was a purple unicorn with a striped mane looking for all the world like she was going to snap at any moment.
“No, no, no, no, no! This can't be right! These readings are all the same!” she shrieked, looking at a stream of paper from some kind of ridiculous contraption that Cranky hadn't noticed upon barging in. Some poor stallion with a couple of donuts for a cutiemark and a 5 o'clock shadow had what looked like a salad bowl with a wire that lead to the contraption strapped to his head.
“All of the readings are the same, there should be some kind of variation!” the unicorn babbled as the swirling papers burst outwards, a few striking Cranky in the face before falling to the floor with the rest of them, “Spike, tally the readings from Pony Joe and add them to the list!”
A small purple and green dragon sat nearby, a huge list gripped in his claws, he looked for all the world like he would keel over from exhaustion at any moment.
“We need a pony that shows some kind of variation! Without a variable to compare the control I can't determine what is wrong with the townsfolk!” the unicorn squealed and whirled around, “Next!”
The poor pony hooked up to the apparatus yelped as the helmet was ripped off by a purple magic field. Cranky came face to face with the purple mare, the crazed look on her face accentuated by her wildly frazzled mane.
“Oh! Hi! Cranky Doodle Donkey isn't it?I can't use you right now since you aren't sick! Are you sick? Maybe you can help with the testing anyway!” she babbled furiously, pushing him aside with her magic and dragging a tan earth pony with a carrot cutiemark through the libraries front door and into the room.
“Hurrump!” Cranky grumped as twlight strapped the protesting pony into the helmet.
“Miss Twilight, I'm fine!” the tan earth pony with the carrot cutiemark protested.
“It's fine. Everythings fine!” Twlight cried crazily, rushing over to the machine to stare wild eyed at the printout.
“Spike! More coffee! I need more coffee! Brew another pot will you? The last batch Is starting to wear off!” Twilight babbled.
“Uh, sure Twilight,” the little dragon said as he trudged off to the nearby kitchen, setting his list down before he went.
“No good! ITS JUST NO GOOD!” the unicorn shrieked as she tore the feed of paper off the machine with her magic and reared up on her hind legs, waving her front hooves in the air crazily.
“Just what is no good?” Cranky asked, growing grumpier by the minute.
“What's no good? WHATS NO GOOD!? I will tell you what's not good,” the mare replied, grinding her teeth and rubbing her front hooves together in a strangely disturbing fashion.
“Whatever is affecting the town, today, is something I've never seen before. That's okay, there's so much to learn. Oh yes, so very much, I read and read and read and read and read but I don't know everything, not yet, but I will, oh yes, I will someday. Just you watch,” she babbled.
“So, ask somepony else, a doctor maybe?” Cranky growled.
“No good, no good. Hospital is a madhouse, mad I tell you! Nopony can speak. It's all, Clop, Clop, Clop, Clop, Clop! You heard them all. You hear them all? How can you miss it!” the unicorn exploded into motion, rushing at him with a speed he wouldn't have thought possible from the scholar but stopping just short of nose to nose before turning away to pace in a circle around a bust in the middle of the room.
“Oh, but I will find it, oh yes I will!” she smirked as he eyes began to twitch and go off in suspiciously Derpy like directions.
The little dragon that came trotting back into the room had just enough time to pass through the doorway before the pot of coffee he had been carrying was jerked out of his claws with magic and downed in a series of messy gulps that left brown streaks in the mares frazzled purple fur.
“It's just a matter of time, the solution can't evade me forever, can it Ms. Fancypants?” the scholar babbled on, levitating a battered old rag doll over.
“Uh, Twi, you should probably get some rest?” the little dragon said, putting a comforting claw on the mares shoulder.
“More like, admitted to the loony bin,” Cranky grumbled.
“Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no! I just need a bigger sample, Spike! And I feel fine! That coffee really did the trick! I wonder why Princess Celestia never told me about coffee when I lived In Canterlot? This stuff is awesome! I could study for ever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever!” the mare squealed as she addressed a nearby flower pot, her doll tossed carelessly aside.
“Hokay, twilight has officially lost it,” the dragon muttered to himself, shot an apologetic glance at Cranky, then turned to the crowd outside the library, " Sorry everypony, but we won't be running any more tests for a while, come back in, uh, tomorrow, Twilight needs some rest now.”
Cranky looked over at the purple mare who was still addressing the flower pot with a rapid fire babble that could have meant anything.
Cranky really didn't see the problem; so what if everypony in town was saying clop, clop, clop, clop, clop?" Sure, they couldn't seem to understand normal speech either, but that just meant they wouldn't try and talk to him.
“This is bad, the scholar true, she has lost her mind, in this Ponyville zoo,” remarked a voice from the doorway.
Cranky swung his gaze around and saw a Zebra silhouetted in the doorway, behind her a bawling mob was meandering about.
“Oh hi Zecora! I'm glad you came over! I'm having some trouble isolating the problem! And did you see this potted plant, as in really looked at it!?” the purple unicorn yelled, never bothering to turn and look at whom she was addressing.
“Twilight Sparkle, you rant and rave, why not try, this delicious Donut with Glaze?” the zebra kindly said as she walked over to twilight and offered her the professed confection seemingly out of knowhere.
“The whole damn town is clopping and you are serving donuts?” cranky growled, wondering where the zebra had been keeping it.
“Oh, donuts! I love donuts! Especially Pinkie's donuts when she uses her 'Special Ingredients!' ” Twilight yelled, grabbing the donut with her magic and gobbling it down.
Not ten seconds later she fell to the floor, unconscious.
“Twlight!” spike yelled, rushing over to shake his mentor.
“Well I will be a ponies plothole! The Jigaboo killed her!” Cranky cried, rushing up to Twilight Sparkles side.
“Your words are disgusting, you cranky old fool, I will ignore it this time, though it was cruel,” the Zebra replied with slight snarl and a glare that could have wilted Twilight's potted plant.
“I know Twilight well, she's crazy sometimes, the donut had medicine, to clear out her mind.”
As if on cue, Twilight sparkle rolled over and moaned.
“Ow, what happened? One moment I was uh, wow. This place is a mess. Spike, what did you do?” she asked, looking over at her assistant and rubbing her head with one hoof.
The little dragon threw his arms around the ponies neck and cried, “Twilight, your okay!”
“Of course I'm okay, spike, what... oh. OH! I remember now. This is bad, very bad.” the unicorn declared, getting up on her wobbly legs and looking around her library.
“Thing have gotten out of hoof, the town cries clop, clop, clop from every roof.” Zecora stated.
“Yes, we know that, thank you,” grumbled Cranky
Zecora turned to glare daggers at the donkey then turned back to twilight.
“I have no idea what is causing this. It's like some kind of mysterious disease is inflicting every pony in town, and there isn't the slightest indication of what it is. Every single pony I have scanned with medical machine, adjusted for gender, known maladies and pony phenotype has come up the same. I even scanned myself and I I can't detect anything out of the ordinary!” she fretted, fidgeting with her hooves.
“Don't you unicorns have some kind of cure all spell?” Cranky asked as he glared back at the Zebra who was sticking out her bottom lip and glowering at him.
“No! No, no, no, no, no! How many educational campaigns does the princess have to run before ponies (and donkeys) get it through their head that magic doesn't work that way! Magic isn't some panacea for every ill, it behaves in logical, predictable patterns that unicorns manipulate to produce measurable, concrete results!” Twilight lectured, shuffling her hind hooves and tail agitatedly.
“Uh. Huh.” Cranky replied.
“Anyway. Whatever.” Twilight slumped down onto the floor, her legs splayed out.
“That's it? You're just giving up?” Cranky growled.
“Hey! Twilight has been up since last night trying to figure out what has been causing this!” Spike replied, crossing his arms defiantly and stepping between Twilight and Cranky. “She needs to sleep before she gets sick!”
“The dragon is right, she may be young, but even the youth, rest with the sun.” the Zebra replied, stepping up next to spike.
Cranky rolled her eyes, not budging an inch. He opened his mouth to unload on the Zebra but was thankfully interrupted by a voice from behind him.
“Um, somepony said that there might be a cure here for the weirdness going around?” came a small voice from behind him, “But uh, if this is a bad time, Lyra and I can come back.”
Cranky swung his neck around, much to fast, and grunted at the spasm that shot through it. Standing in the doorway was a tan colored earth mare with crazy stripped mane and candies on her rump and a mint colored unicorn mare, also with stripped mane and a harp on her behind. Why kids these days dyed their manes stripes and swirls and whirls, Cranky had no idea. It was almost as ridiculous as the town mayor dying her mane grey. Almost.
“Uh, sorry Bon Bon, but Twilight hasn't found out whats wrong yet. Everypony is too, the same, or something. I dunno, it's all technical stuff I don't get.” the dragon replied in the most sympathetic tone he could muster.
“Yeah, about everypony being the same? I mean, Lyra is, well, she's always been different.” Bon Bon looked over uncomfortably at her friend. The mint colored mare was sitting, thankfully, on her haunches staring absently out into space.
“I think she has the same thing as everypony else, except she isn't going clop, clop, clop.”
“Whaddaya mean?” asked Cranky.
The fur on Bon Bons cheeks visibly changed color from tan to rosy.
“Well, uh, Lyra is,” Bon Bon bit her lip and closed her eyed, exhaling slowly before continuing, “ She's kinda obsessed with these things called humans. And I think she's, well, I will show you.”
Bon Bon turned and poked Lyra in the ribs with a hoof. The other mare squealed, startled and then angrily turned to her friend.
“FAP! Fap, fap, fap! Fap fap!” Lyra exclaimed.
“Wha-what did she just say?” asked Twilight, raising her head, her eyes wide.
“Well, um, you see, You know how clopping is kinda when,” Bon Bon blushed further, “When ponies, ummmmm, pleasure themselves.”
Twilight mutely nodded.
“Well, when humans do that sort of thing, it's called fapping instead,” Bon Bon shuddered slightly, “I don't know why! It's just something Lyra told me once.”
“Fap. Fap fap.” Lyra said, as she solemnly put a hoof on Bon Bon shoulder.
“Please, Lyra, just, don't talk.” Bon Bon whispered, trying to shush the other pony, her fur turning a lighter shade of tan.
“How very strange, is it sane, that a pony knows, these humans ways?” Zecora remarked.
Cranky turned his head to look at the Zebra, he didn't care for the mare, but at least she wasn't glaring at him like she was going to put a chicken head in his mailbox anymore.
“Please! Please don't tell anypony about this! If this get out, clop clop clop clop clop!” Bon Bon finished he sentence and paused, a look of horror crossing her face.
“Clop! Clop clop! Clop Clop Clop Clop Clop!” Bon Bon wailed in agony, throwing herself to the floor.
Looking concerned, Lyra sat down next to her friend and stroked Bon Bons mane with a hoof, “Fap Fap. Fap fap fap fap fap.”
She began to lie down next to her friend, but instead found herself being forcibly dragged over to the medical machine by a purple magical field. Surprised, the unicorn mare tried to counter it with her own mint green magical field, but it wasn't any use. Twilight Sparkle was the element of magic. She might as well have been trying to light a safety match in a hurricane.
With the mint green unicorn safely strapped into the helmet and held, squirming, in place with Twilight's magic and the machine began to whir and squeak. Twilight stared intently as a stream of paper was spit out of a slot in the face of the machine, nodding seriously and muttering to herself. Cranky, Spike and Zecora gathered next to her as Bon Bon tried to shush the babbling Lyra.
“That, that's,” Twilight stammered, “Its So OBVIOUS! Why didn't I see it before!?”
The unicorn jumped into the air, bucking her back legs and narrowly missing Cranky's head.
“The only thing that could affect both the speech and comprehension centers of a pony's brain without some form of necrosis is a virus! That's why it's not showing up on the machine at all!"
Twilight spun around and threw her hooves around Lyras neck, causing the mint mare to flush around her ears and nose and her tan partner to look mortified.
"And it's all thanks to Lyra and her weird fetish! I was looking difference in magical patterns brought on by bacterial infection, but a virus would explain how one pony could say one thing and another pony could say something completely different while still have the same signature!" Twilight squealed happily.
"Really? Because I'm just confused." Cranky deadpanned.
"So why aren't you affected?" Spike asked, looking up at Cranky curiously.
"I'm a donkey. We don't get sick. Sick gets us." Cranky grunted.
"The rest will be simple, I just have to clop clop clop, clop clop clop clop!” Twilight cried, happily rushing off to the stairs leading to her basement, ignoring two donkey and baby dragon behind her.
Cranky muzzlehoofed.
“Oh, oh, this is bad.” Spike muttered.
“She can still create a cure, right?” Cranky asked.
“Uh, well, see, one of the first tests we tried was to have ponies try writing out what they where saying. And, uh, Twilight figured out pretty quick when they just wrote clop, clop, clop and they didn't do what she wrote down for them to do that they couldn't write OR read. Afflicted ponies pretty much can't communicate with anypony” Spike explained.
“So?” asked Cranky impatiently.
“So,” the dragon continued, “Twilight is smart, real smart, and she reads, like, all the time, but Medicine isn't really her thing. She would just look it up. She can't look it up now.
“Clop clop! Clop clop clop!” the purple mare called as she happily trotted up the stairs with boxes of medical apparatuses in tow behind her.
“Uh, Twilight, you can't, um.” Spike said.
Twilight Sparkle frowned and looked at Spike, “Clop? Clop clop?”
Spike sighed and smiled weakly at his friend.
“Clop clop?” Twilight asked, “Clop clop, clop...”
Twilight's eyes widened and she sat down hard, dropping the boxes she had levitated behind her. There was a tremendous crash as they bounced and rolled down the stairs behind her.
“Yeah, sorry Twilight.” spike muttered as he walked up to her and stroked her mane. The mare slid down onto her belly, dumbfounded.
“Well isn't that just swell,” Cranky growled, “The librarian finally figures out what is going on and she can't even use her books to make the cure. I guess I can go home and tell Matilda that there wasn't anything I could do to help now.”
“I know this seems bad, dark and gray, but if it's a virus, I know of a way,” Zecora replied calmly.
“Oh? You just had to say that didn't you, just when I was about to go home and have a nice rest, AWAY from the insanity.” Cranky growled, turning to the Zebra.
“You may flee, turning tail, but know this now, I will not quail,” Zecora replied with a slight sneer.
“I go home now and I'm sleeping on the couch. How she gets me to sleep on my own couch when we don't live together, I will NEVER know, but Matilda told me to help get this mess fixed, and when the mare tells you do to something, you get it done or so help you Celestia.” Cranky growled.
“I take it then, you will help me, then off we go, to my home in Everfree,” Zecora said with a smirk as she walked away.
“Lovely,” Cranky growled as he exited the library.
Cranky wasn't afraid of the Everfree forest. But looking at the Zebra's house, he was beginning to wonder if he should be. It was dark, and droopy with weird woo woo masks and bottles of who knows what hanging from the branches. It was only with great reluctance and the threat of having to sleep on his own lumpy, uncomfortable couch that Cranky entered and the inside didn't please him any more than the outside.
“Now sit and wait, my offensive friend, while I brew a cure, for Ponyville to mend.” the Zebra declared, as she busied himself around the one room home, gathering roots and leaves from the rafters and things from jars that Cranky couldn't and didn't want to know about.
He sat on his rump in the doorway for the better part of an hour, watching suspiciously at the Zebra busied herself with a huge pot, a bed of kindling underneath. He couldn't for the life of him figure out why she didn't light it. Didn't Zebra's brew potions over a fire? Nevertheless Zecora kept adding things and stirring and adding and stirring some more. He also couldn't figure out why she didn't taste her witches brew, he could have sworn the black and white film documentary he had seen years ago showed THEM tasting it. Instead the Zebra was, if he wasn't totally mistaken, being careful NOT to touch the contents. Cranky idly wondered if it was going to eat through the black cast iron pot.
“Clop Clop Clop, Clopclop, CLOPCLOP, Clop Clop Clop, Cloopclop CLOPCLOP.” the Zebra remarked as she regarded her brew admiringly.
“Oh, LOVELY,” Cranky growled, facehoofing, “The Zebra WOULD clop in ryhme.”
Cranky yelped as he felt a hoof forcefully jab him in the ribs and looked up to see Zecora angrily gesturing first to him and then to the cauldron.
“Oh, and I suppose it's up to Cranky Doodle Donkey to save the day, is it?” he grumbled as he looked at the cauldron.
“And what do you expect me to do, spoon feed it to everypony in town!?” he asked her, grimacing a he watched her produce a wooden spoon from somewhere and sip her own brew.
She then turned and glared at him again.
“Buck me.” he mumbled.
“I've gotta say, Cranky, that was a great idea! Dumping Zecora's brew in the town water supply!” Twilight Sparkle said as the two of them walked out of Ponyvilles guard station.
Cranky grunted.
“And I was even able to convince Princess Celestia to pardon you for doing it. Uh, I believe you, you know, that you didn't know dumping a magical toxin into the water supply was a capital crime,” she said sympathetically
Cranky grunted.
“I mean, the cure really is better than the disease, “ she went on, shaking her head, her now ridiculously oversized ears flopping about her head, “Though I could do without the floppy ears.”
“What's wrong with floppy ears?” he grunted.
“Well, uh, nothing!” she replied guiltily, glancing over at the donkeys naturally floppy ears, “It's just, ummmmm, the potions side effects don't just temporarily make our ears bigger, they kinda enhance our hearing to a ridiculous degree.”
“What's bad about that? Too much noise?” Cranky asked, stopping to look at her and frowning.
“No, it's WHAT I'm hearing, I can hear even really slight sounds,” she replied.
“Like what?” he asked, his curiosity piqued.
Twilight turned to face him and deadpanned, “Clop, clop, clop, clop, clop.”