Derpy delivers a package to the Everfree Forest. Things get way, way, WAY out of hoof.
Derpy arrives to work late, as usual, and finds herself tasked with the delivery of a package to a recipient whom her boss describes as "a crotchety old unicorn," who lives in the Everfree Forest. With her job on the line, Derpy ends up going above and beyond the call of duty, outflying and outrunning dragons, parasprites, river monsters, and an empty stomach, all in the name of making what would seem to be a simple delivery. Unfortunately for Derpy, this delivery is anything but what it seems.
Cover Art by Tarantad0 of Deviantart Click the source link to see the original Deviation.
I found this little piece laying around in my hard drive. I wrote this last summer to pass some time. It took about a week's worth of evenings, but I was pleased with it. It was supposed to be the first part of an ongoing series called "The Misadventures of Derpy Hooves," but I posted it to a website where no one reads fanfiction. It got almost no views, and I dropped the idea. I'm going to try it again here, and see how it does. If people like it, I may just turn it into a serial.
Essentially, this is me writing in "G-rated" Mode. No gore. No foul language. No sexual references. No substance abuse -- muffins excluded. This story, in other words, fits in pretty well with the world of the show. It's just a fun little story about a delivery gone so far awry that you wouldn't even believe me if I tried to explain it here.
For a reference, the Derpy in my head has the revised "Last Roundup" voice. I wasn't offended by the original voice; I honestly just didn't like it. So, while I felt that they should have left the name "Derpy" in the show, I do like the new voice better. It sounds more like the old "Muffins" voice from season 1, anyway.
But that's not important. The Derpy you're going to be reading about is in your head, not mine!
Enjoy!
Chapter 1: Dragons and Parasprites and "Jaws" References, Oh My!
Dragons and Parasprites and "Jaws" References, Oh My!
Derpy Hooves stood frozen in abject terror just inside the small, dingy office of her boorish foreman, Boxxy Brown. She had been late again, and Boxxy had given her the once-over, as usual. It was routine by now: "One more day like this, and you're gone, you get me!? I don't know why I keep thinking you'll shape up and quit wasting my time! Guess I'm just in a good mood today, or I'd give you a pink slip right here!" Derpy had heard some variation of this speech at least a hundred times by now, and she knew what came next: Boxxy was going to give her a job to do; an awful one, most likely.
“Just fly east over the Everfree Forest until you see a mountain with a house on top of it. There's a crotchety old unicorn what lives there by the name of Withers Deathray. This package is for him.”
“W-w-w-what!?” Derpy stuttered. "I don't want to meet anypony who has 'Deathray' actually in his name!" Boxxy snorted out a laugh.
“Well, if I had my way,” he said, “I wouldn't have ever met anypony with “Derpy” in hers!”
He reached down behind his desk with his head, and lifted a small brown box up in his teeth.
“Now hrrr,' he grunted, his large, yellowed teeth filled with the package.
Derpy furtively craned her head towards the parcel, but the vile aroma of Boxxy's breath caused her to recoil away.
“Whrt!?” Boxxy lifted his right eyebrow in a mixture of annoyance and confusion as Derpy turned quickly to the side and opened up her delivery bag.
“Just drop it in.”
“PHTOOEY!”
Derpy cringed at the sound of the contaminated box flopping into the bottom of her saddlebag. “Well, I'll be on my way!”
As she made for the door, Boxxy cleared his throat, loudly.
“Did I say you could leave?”
“You said to deliver the pack...”
“Don't you tell me what I said!” Boxxy trotted quickly to place himself between Derpy and the door. Each heavy, thudding hoofbeat made Derpy's heart race a little faster.
“Listen, bubble head,” he growled, as he shoved his huge, brown face into her own, “You've got the worst delivery record of anypony here, and frankly, I'm tired of seeing all the complaints comin' in off your route. If I had anypony – and I mean ANYPONY else -- to trust with this package, I would, but everypony else was gone when it came in. Know why that is?"
Derpy shook her head, "no," despite knowing the answer. Like most of Boxxy's rhetoric, she'd heard it before.
"Because," said Boxxy, "they get to work on time.”
“I have to walk Dinky to school, every morning!" Derpy protested. "I told you that when you hired me!"
Boxxy scowled.
“You could fly her to school, and shave a few minutes," he said.
“I tried that. If I fly fast, she gets airsick, and if I fly slow, there's no difference.” Derpy's tone was pleading, and for a moment, Boxxy's expression softened.
“Why are we even having this discussion again?" he asked. "Your little ground-pounder isn't my problem. My problem is that package. It's supposed to be a rush delivery. Since you're all I got, -- and there's no way I'm leaving YOU to watch the office -- I'm giving you this one, simple little job to do today. You don't so much as have to set hoof in Everfree. Just stay above it the whole way there and back; you'll be fine. All you have to do is fly straight east out of town about two hours, get Deathray's signature, give him the package, and fly back here. And look at me when I'm talking to you!”
“I am looking at you! You're watching the wrong eye!” Derpy yelped.
“Whatever!” Boxxy huffed. “Do this right, and I'll let you go home early. And I MAY even forget about your lousy record for a day or two. Screw this up, and you'll be looking for somepony else dumb enough to hire a pony who's 'special talent' is being an idiot! Now GO!”
“Yessir!” Derpy's wings were beating before she even reached the exit. She took the knob in her teeth, flung open the door, and dove through.
CRASH! Broom closet.
“Would you get out of my office!?” shouted Boxxy.
“I'm going!” came Derpy's harried reply.
SMASH! Window.
“That's comin' outta your paycheck!”
Derpy didn't care. She could barely hear Boxxy's fading voice as she flew like a madmare for the Everfree Forest.
* * *
Oh, this is bad, Derpy thought. She was over the forest now, and Ponyville was beginning to fade out of sight. The only sounds in the sky were the shifting winds and the flapping of Derpy's own wings. Boxxy gets upset pretty easily, but he seemed serious, this time. If I lose my job, I won't be able to take care of Dinky! Ponyville Social Services might take her away from me!
Flapping.
Wait. I'm worrying too much about this. It's just a simple delivery. So what if it's for some old curmudgeon with a scary name...
Louder flapping.
...who happens to live in the middle of what might actually be the worst place in the world. All I've got to do is fly straight east. It's still morning, so that's straight into the sun...
Thunderous flapping. I think...
Ear-shattering flapping.
What's the worst that could happen? And why are my wings so loud?
Derpy glanced back over her shoulder to determine the source of the noise.
It was a dragon, its mouth wide open.
“Sweet, Holy Celestia!” shrieked the pegasus.
Derpy snap rolled starboard, and a pair of cavernous green jaws slammed shut on thin air with an ear-splitting THOCK. The gust of their impact filled her wings and pushed her even further away from the scaly beast. It was only by sheer fortune that the added boost pushed her beyond the reach of the gargantuan green claw that swept past her face as she swung wide to starboard. She churned furiously at the air as the dragon banked to pursue her.
Well, if he wanted to roast me with his breath, he could have already done that. He must prefer his ponies raw. That's a relief.
A moment's further imagination led Derpy to determine that this was, in point of fact, no relief at all.
“WHAT AM I THINKING!?” she yelped.
The dragon banked towards her, and brought itself across Derpy’s hindquarters. As it passed it took another snap, coming even closer than before. Sweeping past, it propelled itself forward with a sudden, hard rearward thrust of its wings, and rolled over, angling its tail outward of its center of rotation in an effort to bat Derpy down. The terrible instrument swept so close behind the little pegasus that she was certain she felt it brush her tail. This assault failing, the dragon opened its wings and began to gain altitude. Three beats of its emerald wings had lifted it well above her in the sky.
What's he doing? Think, Derpers; think back to flight school...
An image entered Derpy's mind of her old flight instructor, Hotwings McPhee. He had been a fat, red pegasus with a gray, receding mane and a fried chicken wing for a cutie mark. He had always smelled like crayons and toothpaste.
The things you remember from school, thought Derpy.
The dragon was still gaining altitude. Oh, what did he say to do!?
“Now, children,” Hotwings had said, “there's a small but very real chance that at some point in your life, something or somepony may attempt to physically harm you while you are in flight. Their most likely course of action will be to attempt to gain altitude, so that they can use the additional acceleration provided by a dive to gain the velocity necessary to overtake you. You should do everything you can to avoid allowing them to gain a superior position.” Well, too late for that. C'mon, Derps, there had to be something else!
“If, for whatever reason, you cannot prevent the assailant from gaining altitude more quickly than you, then your only option is to dive. At this point, you're essentially playing chicken -- and that's where I come in.” He had gestured at his cutie mark then. "I'm the master of chicken," he had said. "Never been beaten at it once. That's because I know when to pull up; know right when I'd be too fast -- when my wings would snap from the strain if I waited a moment longer. Most ponies don't know that. Most learn in the worst possible way. But me? I'm the master; and I'm gonna teach you how to win at chicken. Every. Single. Time." What had followed was a month long course that had brought her inches closer to the ground every day. She had thought the old pegasus insane. There couldn't possibly be any good reason a pony would need to know how to execute such a maneuver. It was useless, like algebra.
Until today.
Okay, old stallion, thought Derpy. Let's see if you really *were* the master.
Derpy looked down at the green expanse beneath her, then upwards at the green terror above her.
"I hate my job," she grunted under her breath.
Shutting her eyes for a moment, she closed her wings and let gravity go to work, angling herself into an all-out nosedive.
Seeing her maneuver, the Dragon realized its hand had been forced, and did likewise. Derpy checked its pursuit with a quick glance back, and felt her heart sink as she realized that she was now caught in a game of chicken with a hungry creature hundreds of times her size.
"I love you, Dinky."
At the thought of her daughter, Derpy's eyes corrected their bizarre misalignment, a rare occurrence of which Derpy herself was never aware. She clenched her wings and legs to her sides and gritted her teeth, She'd never had great depth perception, but she was certain she had lost about half her altitude, by now. What was worse: it had been maybe ten or twelve seconds since she'd sensed herself reaching terminal velocity.
"I'll be dead in ten seconds." she thought. "Maybe twelve."
She looked back once more, and her heart leapt! The dragon had opened its wings and was furiously trying to pull out of its dive. From its thrashing wings, and the expression on its face, it didn't seem to Derpy that it would be able to make it.
Whatever, she thought. But will I?
Derpy opened her wings slowly. Whether or not she was the smartest pony, she was a good flyer, if nothing else, and Hotwings had taught her well. She knew she had to resist the urge to fling her wings open all at once. At this speed, the sudden wind resistance could sprain or even break them. All her skill and all of Hotwing's careful instruction would be useless then; she'd be a goner for certain.
As she continued to open her wings and slowly pulled up, the dragon plummeted past her, leaving in its wake a massive wave of turbulence which ruffled her mane, fur, and feathers. She heard the roar, saw the great, green claw that swept past her in a furious attempt to bring her down with it, but she had no time to even consider either one. As her wings reached full extension, she finally brought her body level, but her inertia caused her to continue dropping, nonetheless. She flew forward, losing altitude more and more slowly, but still too quickly for comfort. The trees were close enough now that she could see individual branches. Somewhere behind her, there was a loud but dull thud: the dragon's impact. Only a second later, the trees were all around her. The forest floor reached up so close that she was certain she felt it brush her chin and belly. She thought those sensations must certainly be her last, that she had struck the earth, and that here her life was ended, but instinct and training drove her upward on the chaotic pumping of her wings. Now, with no time to consider the remarkable fact of her own continued existence, Derpy rolled and banked through the green, twisted tangle of the Everfree canopy, her altitude at last stable.
Maybe next year I'll do this for the Best Young Flyer Competition, she thought, as she desperately searched for the next pony-sized hole in the thick, green-brown wall that seemed never to end. She was beating her wings in retrograde now, trying her best to extinguish what remained of her momentum. At least I'm not going so fast an impact would actually kill me anymore.
SNAP! spoke the forest in reply to the pegasus' hubris.
Derpy's hoof had clipped a branch the thickness of a pencil. At normal speeds it would hardly have been noticeable, but with this kind of propulsion behind her, it sent her tumbling, head over tail. The ground grabbed the pegasus by her bottom, and suddenly she was rolling. There came a steady beating at her body from every direction: thuds and thumps on every side at such a rate that their sources were indeterminate and seemingly everywhere. Derpy wasn't sure how far she had rolled when she finally came to rest, but there at last she was, upside-down, resting against a boulder, and cross-eyed as ever. She looked left, looked right, and then gently wiggled each wing and leg. Nothing broken.
“I'm alive?" she asked, her voice thick with amazement.
"I'm alive!” she shouted happily.
Derpy leaped to her hooves, and hopped up and down like a lunatic.
“I'm alive! I'm alive! I'm alive!”
Two minutes ago, this had been a routine delivery. For most ponies, this would be a time for reflection on the fragility of life. For Derpy Hooves?
“Time for a muffin.”
Derpy climbed up on top of the boulder she had come to rest against, flitting her wings to give herself an extra boost. Once she was on top of it, she sat down on her haunches, grabbed hold of her saddle bags by her teeth, then pulled them forward, and over her head. Before she could fully remove them, however, her left wing got caught under the belt. Several tugs and one very-near tumble later, she paused.
“Wait a second.”
Derpy wriggled about until the saddle bags slid back down to their original position about her midriff, then pressed them downward and off of her body with her forehooves.
“There we go! Muffin time!”
Derpy opened the saddle bag that usually rode on her left side. The right bag was occupied by the package and her clipboard, but this one served a very special purpose in the life of the gray pegasus. It was stocked with a variety of muffins, which were her favorite food, and something of a mild, long-time obsession. Derpy had one of every muffin Sugar Cube Corner made, and several she had baked at home.
There was cinnamon, chocolate chip, and various apple muffins. There was strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, and cranberry – one of each with and without white and dark chocolate. There was a carrot muffin. There was a bran muffin. There was a corn muffin. There was a hay muffin. There were muffins flavored in four different varieties of citrus fruit. There were muffins with nuts – peanuts, walnuts, almonds, and cashews. There was a banana muffin. There was a Neapolitan muffin. There was a peanut butter muffin. There was a muffin muffin!
“Pinkie Pie sure does know how to pack a muffin bag! Now which one for a snack?”
For Derpy, choosing a muffin was just shy of impossible. She'd long ago given up trying to pick just one during her morning stop at Sugar Cube Corner. It was an errand of utter futility which tended to make Dinky late for school and Derpy even later for work. Pinkie Pie had learned to expect her, and now she simply stuffed the bag full, wordlessly but for a cheerful “Hello!” Mr. and Mrs. Cake were even kind enough to give Derpy a discount for being such a consistent customer. It was a good thing, too; not even Derpy's muffin budget could withstand this kind of wretched excess.
But her stomach could.
“Strawberry Cheesecake with vanilla glaze! Looks like we have a winner!”
Derpy gently bit down on the muffin, and removed it from its place in the bag. Then she bit off a generous hunk of its warm, soft top. She balanced the remainder of the muffin on her hoof as she chewed and swallowed, her face painted with an expression of pure ecstasy. As she finished her first bite of the muffin, she took a moment to observe her surroundings.
The boulder which had earlier halted her involuntary somersault, and upon which she now sat, occupied the center of a small clearing. It was a relatively pleasant place for the Everfree Forest, owing mostly to the fact that sunlight reached the forest floor, here, and allowed grass to grow. The trees at the clearing's edge even looked somewhat friendlier than they did elsewhere in the strange wood. They were still gnarled and twisted, but the sun shone down and painted them pretty browns and greens, as opposed to the cold grays and dull olive colors that seemed to dominate the dark undergrowth of the forest.
“If I had to hit any rock in the forest, I aimed pretty well.” She took another bite.
“Prpbt!”
Derpy swallowed. “What was that noise!?”
“Prrrpt, Prprbrpt!”
“Oh, sweet Celestia, NO!”
There was only one thing in the world that made that sound. Derpy took a deep breath, and turned her gaze away from her muffin.
Eyes. Eyes in the trees. First there were two, then four, then eight, then dozens, each pair affixed to a brightly-colored, winged ball of unbridled cuteness – and hunger. They were parasprites, the most adorable of all the horrors the earth had seen fit to suffer, and every one of them had its wicked, loveable gaze fixed on Derpy's saddlebags.
They're after my saddlebags... my muffins... the package!
The chirping, all at once heart-warming and terrifying, continued to intensify as more and more pairs of eyes appeared amidst the boughs. A swath of orange ripped across the clearing, and the muffin that had been atop Derpy's hoof simply ceased to be. Startled, she hopped to her hooves and let out a squeak of surprise. All the world seemed to slow to a crawl. Derpy craned her neck down and took the belt of her saddle bags in her mouth. From a dead start, she knew she could not gain altitude quickly enough to escape. She would have to make a run for it. Her legs and wings tensed as her addled, yellow eyes searched the field of iridescent adorability for any opening she might exploit. After some three or four seconds that seemed to stretch into as many hours, she saw just one path through the thickets and brambles that was not occupied by a parasprite.
There! She had no other thought. For a moment, she did not breathe.
The chirping grew quiet. They were preparing to strike. It was Derpy, however, who made the first move. She was a gray and yellow streak of pounding hooves and flapping wings, using everything at her disposal to propel herself towards her identified avenue of escape. The parasprites reacted just as suddenly, closing in on her in a buzzing, chirping cloud of ravening hunger and raving madness.
Too late! She was through the swarm and at full gallop, diving over logs and through vine tangles with a grace that defied her reputation for clumsiness, and yet her every maneuver was matched by the pursuing haze of darling insatiability.
Not my muffins! Not the package! Not my job! Not my Dinky!
Never in all her life had Derpy run so fast – not at the running of the leaves, not from the sight of Nightmare Moon, herself. She was ludicrous with fear and indignation! She was a lightning bolt born not of cloud, but of earth! She was a mare made of wind and fury!
And then the ground went away. Gorge.
“Srrrusly!?” Remarkably, she had the presence of mind not to drop the saddlebags, but as she burst from the trees and dropped into Ghastly Gorge, Derpy almost forgot she could fly. Unlike the previous incident with the dragon, there was no need to open her wings slowly – nor was there time. The ancient river which had cut the gorge was growing larger by the second. As she flung open her wings and leveled out, the heart-warming hoard of doom continued to give chase. Derpy dove low, and skimmed just above the surface of the water. It gained her a little distance, but it put her in the same unenviable position in which she had found herself earlier; she simply could not gain altitude quickly enough to escape.
She pressed on with all her might, scanning the trees to either side and the canyon walls beyond. Certainly, there had to be some way out of this predicament. It was then that she first caught sight of something she had not noticed before: A shadow loomed in the deep. It was right beneath her, tracking her every movement, and it was growing larger.
A great gray face crested the river's surface. It was a giant fish with jagged scales that glistened like blades in the sun. It rolled over on its side, displaying a mouth full of razors that was easily as large as the dragon's had been. And just above that vicious, toothy grin, it's right eye met Derpy's own – a horrible eye, black and devoid of emotion or compassion. The sight made Derpy feel as if an icicle had replaced her spine
It's like a doll’s eye!
The leviathan slipped under the water, and Derpy knew she could not remain at this altitude, lest she be snatched from the sky by its cruel teeth. She angled her body upward and pumped her wings vigorously, but as she did so, the Parasprites closed the gap. Halfway up the canyon walls, they overcame her.
She was surrounded. Parasprites swarmed this way and that, four of them tugging at the saddlebag and a dozen more pulling at her wings and mane. Derpy gritted her teeth against the belt, and rolled and twisted amidst the greedy chatter of the insectoid scourge. She felt her teeth slipping, and kicked her body forward, looping her left foreleg through the belt to gain extra leverage. Soon, the number of parasprites trying to wrench the bags free of her grip made it completely impossible for her to flap her wings. She was suspended in the sky only by their avaricious legs, and both she and the cloud of parasprites were losing altitude, moving downwards towards the thing in the river.
Derpy had finally had enough.
“Listen, you charming little pukes!” An insult both literal and figurative.
The chirping halted. The parasprites clinging to her body and gnawing at the muffin bag froze, and what seemed like thousands of eyes rolled towards her. There was no sound but the buzzing of the parasprites' wings.
“You want muffins? HERE!”
Derpy took the flap of the muffin bag in tooth, and ripped it open. A cascade of muffins poured from the open bag, and showered into the river. The parasprites dove immediately to follow it, and swarmed low over the water's surface. Derpy hovered in exasperation as the whole cloud and the muffins beneath it moved downstream with the river's flow. She heard the vile hacking of the otherwise captivating little creatures regurgitating their offspring into existence. Sickened by the whole affair, – and by the loss of so many delectable muffins -- she slowly climbed upward, one flap at a time.
Then, with a mighty SPLASH, the great fish exploded from the water's surface, its jaws agape, swallowing both parasprites and muffins in one, titanic gulp. The whole event took less than a second before a great, wet WHOOSH marked the fish's return to the depths.
Derpy hovered for a moment, staring at the place in the water where the fish had disappeared.
“I'm hungry,” she said quietly. She strapped her saddlebags around her waist, and made for the clouds.
The rest of Derpy's flight was largely uneventful, though she had developed a healthy case of paranoia and a more-than-passing tendency to check behind herself with a rather excessive frequency. Soon, a lone mountain loomed into view, its peak half again higher than Derpy's own altitude. It was a strange sight, standing by itself in the middle of the forest. Just above its treeline, it flattened out at it's peak.
She found a friendly updraft and rode it to a height from which she could comfortably descend on her destination. It was quite chilly up so high, but she was so elated to be nearing her errand's completion that she didn't even notice. Sure enough, as the updraft carried her above the mountain’s peak, she looked down to see what must surely be the home of Withers Deathray, situated in the very center of a depression in the mountain's peak. It was a crater; the mountain was an extinct volcano.
“That's strange,” Derpy mumbled to herself. “Boxxy said it was a house. That looks more like a mansion or a castle.”
It was too small to properly be considered a castle, but it did indeed bear many of the features of a fortress. It was stone, with a high wall surrounding an inner courtyard, and the structure at the center of that courtyard seemed somehow foreboding, even from a distance. Strangest of all, its roof was flat, capped by a huge mechanical device that resembled a bowl with a a giant unicorn's horn in the middle. It was arced upward and pointed straight back towards the direction from which Derpy had come. As she drew closer, she could see that this device was made entirely of iron, and was very old and rusty. Next to it sat what appeared to be a small, antique airship.
It was against protocol to enter a locked property without the owner's permission. So, Derpy sat herself down just outside the tall, iron gate. It was as rusty as the thing on the roof, and chained fast with an iron padlock which was almost the size of Derpy's head that had no visible keyhole.
“Hello,” she only half-yelled. In truth, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear an answer. When no reply came, she considered going back to Ponyville and telling Boxxy that no one had been home. She knew she couldn't do that, though. That would be the end of her job, for sure. She cleared her throat.
“Hello!” Her voice echoed in the ancient crater. No reply but the sound of the wind.
“HELLO!” This time, she screamed. For a few seconds, there was no reply. Then, the big iron lock glowed for a moment, and opened, seemingly of its own will. The link of chain which had been looped over its tang slipped loose. Now, the chain and lock began to move, slithering like a rusty, iron snake. It first made its way to the ground, then, looping the end of its chain tail around an iron bar of the gate, pulled it open to allow Derpy's passage. Derpy stood dumbstruck in a mixture of amazement and fear. The chain snake waited, and seemed to watch her with its eyeless padlock head. When she did not move, it choked its chain body up further on the iron bar, an action which created an awful, metallic scraping noise. Once repositioned to its satisfaction, the chain snake used the newly-freed end of its tail to gesture for her to come inside. Quivering with reluctance, Derpy obeyed.
As she passed through the gate, Derpy observed her bizarre surroundings. The forest below seemed almost welcoming, by comparison. Because this edifice stood above the treeline, there was nothing green in the courtyard. It was paved with cobblestones, and everywhere she looked there were strange statues of all manner of animals and ponies. The statues were made not of stone, but of twisted iron, so that they seemed skeletal and even death-like. Rust covered every one, and lent a further air of corruption and decay to their appearance. There were statues in the shape of huge cats, statues in the shapes of birds, statues of wolves, and of course, statues of pegasi, unicorns, and earth-ponies, alike.
And that one is looking at me.
It was a statue of a unicorn which stood just to the right of the path leading to the front door of the mansion. Its head had been turned a different direction a few moments ago, but at some point, while she hadn't been looking, it had shifted its gaze to focus on Derpy.
No, I'm crazy. It must have been like that all along.
CLANG! Derpy almost jumped out of her skin. It was the gate. Its peculiar guardian had shut it, and was coiling itself back around the bars.
I'm locked in! Derpy very nearly fainted.
“Wait... Wings.” She allowed herself a nervous giggle. Of course, she could just fly over the wall at any time. She turned back toward the house, and had walked to within spitting distance of the unicorn statue before she realized its head was turned the other way again. Derpy stopped in her tracks, and had to restrain herself from taking to the air. She would do this job, no matter what. She gave the statue a wide berth as she continued to walk toward the door, her whole body trembling violently.
“Just get his signature, and give him the package. Then, go home. That's all you've got to do, Derps. Just get a signature. You've done it a thousand times before.” Derpy's pep-talk didn't calm her tremulous body. What it did do, at least, was fill the awful silence that pervaded the courtyard, and it gave her the force of will to keep putting one hoof in front of the other. Before she knew it, she stood at the tall, arched double doors of the foreboding, gray manor. Upon the door there was a sculpture of a life-size Unicorn Stallion's head. Unique among everything she had seen here so far, it was silver, and carefully cast to appear as realistic as possible. An iron doorknocker was suspended from its teeth, and she reached out to take it in her own. After the things she had seen, she fully expected it to knock on the door all by itself.
Her expectation proved accurate. It made it no less startling.
“Eah!” Derpy yelped as the knocker landed twice against the iron stop pad. Two loud, hollow thuds echoed from beyond the heavy doors. She was more ready than ever to get that signature, rid herself of the package, and go sailing over those walls.
I'm flying flat-out back to Ponyville. No stops. No slowing down. I can rest when I get home.
The door groaned, and as it began to swing open, rust broke away from its iron hinges as if it had not been opened in years. Derpy was sweating profusely, despite the cold. What kind of pony lived in a place like this? What kind of pony had a name like Withers Deathray? What unimaginable fiend lay behind the portal that even now was slowly swinging aside? She turned her eyes upward, and prepared to come face-to-face with a black stallion of the apocalypse.
“Down here!” Derpy was confused. Where was that voice coming from?
“Hey, you! Swizzle-eyes!” It dawned on her that the voice was coming from immediately below her field of vision. She looked down. There before her stood a short, shriveled unicorn wrapped in a red saddle blanket. He was white, but not the beautiful, healthy white Derpy was accustomed to seeing in unicorns. There was a tinge of yellow to his coat, and his mane had almost completely fallen out. Only a few gray sprigs remained to mark that it had ever existed at all – and they were very long and unkempt. He eyed Derpy with an expression of utter contempt, rendered comical by the fact that his enormous glasses made his eyes appear to be half again their normal size.
His eyebrows flattened as he spoke. “Whatever you want, make it quick. I'm busy.”
“Oh, I'm sorry sir! Are you Withers Deathray?” Derpy realized that the silver unicorn’s head on the door was the same unicorn to whom she now spoke -- years and years ago.
“Well, who else would I be!? Nopony else lives out here! And what's more, who wants to know? I can't believe you come knocking on my door, disturbing my work without even the courtesy to introduce yourself!”
“Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm Derpy Hooves with the Equestrian Parcel Service. You have a package.”
Derpy opened her saddle bag and fished out the box with her teeth. She remembered as she turned to face the tiny unicorn that this self-same package had earlier been in Boxxy's putrid mouth. Reflexively, she opened her mouth and dropped the box in disgust. Realizing what she had done, she raised her forelegs and awkwardly caught it before it could hit the ground. She very nearly lost her balance and fell forward on top of it, but quickly began flapping her wings to keep the forward half of her body suspended. Looking down, she quickly read the return address on the box.
“It's from... Carousel Boutique?” Derpy was more confused than usual.
“Ah! My diamond!” The little, old unicorn's horn glowed, and the box did likewise. Then, it wrenched itself free of Derpy's grasp. Gingerly, she sat her forehooves back on the ground, and stopped beating her wings. The box seemed to tear itself open, and out from it levitated the biggest diamond Derpy had ever seen. A Diamond!? At least that explains the dragon. Any dragon within ten miles would smell that thing!
“It's lovely!! And just in time: I'm almost done with the calibrations!” The old unicorn's salty, high-pitched voice rose a full octave as he spoke, and with a speed that belied his shriveled appearance, he turned and ran back into his enormous home, the huge diamond floating right alongside him as he went.
“Wait, sir!” Derpy shouted. “I have to get your signature!” She removed her clipboard from the same saddlebag that had held the package. It was piled deep with forms that needed Deathray's signature. Technically, she was never supposed to enter a home while on duty. Boxxy would never know, though, and she was not going back without that signature. In she went.
The place somehow managed to be even creepier inside than out. There were no statues here, but everything from the faded red tapestries that lined the walls to the ornate chandelier that hung from the ceiling to the carpets on the floors to the large, ebony dining table that dominated the chamber was coated in dust and cobwebs. The old unicorn obviously hadn’t used this room recently. Derpy doubted he ever had.
Why would he? This place is for entertaining, and I think I'm the first soul he's seen in ages.
Derpy continued to examine the room in an effort to figure out where Deathray had gone. It was slightly warmer inside, despite the fact that no fire burned in the huge fireplace positioned opposite the door, and somehow, that made Derpy aware for the first time of just how cold this place really was. There was a staircase on the left side of the room, and from one of several hallways at the top of it, Derpy caught sight of a dim glow. The telekinesis on the diamond! That's where he went!
Derpy forewent the stairs altogether, and flew upwards. The breeze off her wings kicked up a billowing cloud of dust from the floor, the walls, and even the ceiling. She landed at the top of the staircase in a coughing fit that caused her to drop the clipboard.
“Sir!” Derpy stretched the word into three separate syllables. She knew she was whining, and she didn't care. She just wanted to go home. This day had been long enough without this strange little pony making it worse.
“Aw...” She picked up the clipboard, and cantered down the hallway in pursuit the diminishing glow. After several twists and turns, she caught up to her quarry just as he was opening a heavy, wooden door. Given no other choice, she followed him through.
Inside, she discovered what was obviously a magical laboratory. There were beakers, shelves of scrolls, and large, strange machines of unguessable purpose scattered all about the premises. Derpy had seen a similar laboratory once before, when searching for a book in the basement of the Ponyville Library.
But it wasn't half this size, she thought. No; not even a fourth!
At the center of the room, running all the way to the ceiling, there was a huge, cylindrical iron chamber. Unlike all the other iron objects she had seen in this place, it was immaculate; clean and black. A little ways above head height, it tapered down to a smaller diameter, and then ended abruptly. A glowing spire extended straight down from it, and came to a point at eye level. Deathray was waddling towards it. As he went, he removed his saddle blanket via telekinesis and moved it across the room to a coat rack. His cutie mark was now revealed to Derpy. It was a sunburst, common among unicorns who were exceptionally skilled in magic, (and by that same token, incredibly uncommon in the world at large) but this one was different than the few Derpy had seen before; It was solid black.
Derpy had a bad feeling about this odd little unicorn, but she had to get his signature, whatever the case. Deathray placed the diamond at the end of the strange spire, and it hovered there, rotating slowly. Derpy tucked the clipboard under her wing.
“Sir?”
“Wah!” Deathray jumped half his own diminutive height. “What are YOU doing in here!?”
“I... I have to get your signature... Please?” Derpy smiled sweetly, trying her best to focus both eyes in unison on the old pony's face. The attempt only resulted in her head cocking awkwardly to the right.
“Oh. Fine, fine.” The clipboard glowed faintly, and levitated out from under Derpy's wing and towards Deathray. A pen floated from a nearby desktop.
“Don't forget to sign every page. We need lots of signatures for an item of that value.” Derpy continued to look around at the peculiar room. Noticing her bewilderment even as he flipped through the dozens of pages of the manifest, stopping to sign each one, Deathray smiled for the first time. He had no teeth.
“Impressive, isn't it? I spent the better part of a century building this laboratory. Not an easy feat when one has to gather all his resources either by mail order or from the Everfree Forest!”
“You ordered all this?” Derpy definitely did not recall ever having delivered anything here, before.
“Most of it, but that was decades ago! You wouldn't even have been alive.” Deathray continued signing papers.
“Why order everything?”
“Oh, that whole business with being banished here for the rest of my life – a point on which I still find myself in disagreement with the Princess.”
“Uh, okay,” said Derpy.
“Oh, but that was before your time, too, wasn't it? No, I doubt anyone remembers me at all, these days.” Still more signing.
“If you don't mind my asking, why did Princess Celestia banish you?” Even though she was a little apprehensive about this strange little pony, Derpy's curiosity was piqued. For the first time, her thoughts were on something other than getting out of this place.
“Well, for most of my youth, I was just another magic research specialist. I had a secret project, though. Most of us did back then, but mine was special. While everypony else was creating spells to do mundane things like make earth ponies fly or allow animals to talk, I was designing the most powerful weapon in the history of the world!” He was about halfway through the stack of papers, by this point.
Derpy gulped, forcing a lump that felt like a crab apple down her throat. “What sort of weapon?”
“Well, a deathray, of course!”
“Of course," said Derpy. "The name, and all.”
“Yes. If I was going to design a liferay, my name wouldn't make much sense at all, now would it?” He chortled as he flipped another page.
“I suppose not.” Derpy did not like where this was going, at all.
“Just imagine this, Ms... Hooves, did you say? How quaint. At any rate, imagine this: Most of the great magical weapons of antiquity were too destructive to ever be used. They would level entire countries, reduce mountains to craters, and otherwise cause destruction on a scale that defied imagination. I have read, in some of my older tomes, that Discord was quite fond of them, and even had something to do with their design. To ponies, though, they were of little use. What value is there in a conquest if the lands of the conquered are uninhabitable?”
“Why would you...” Deathray stepped on Derpy's words, and continued speaking.
“My deathray completely sidesteps this little caveat. It simply... well... causes death! It snuffs out the life forces of every inhabitant of an entire city, leaving all of their wealth and the resources of the surrounding area intact. That's the prototype on the roof!”
“Oh! That's... That's just fascinating!” Derpy forced a smile as her heart dropped into her empty, growling stomach.
“Isn't it, though?” He seemed entirely too pleased with himself.
“And the diamond?” Derpy barely managed to whimper out the question.
“I need a large diamond of absolute perfection to serve as a conduit for magical refraction of the ray. Otherwise, its range will be limited only to its immediate surroundings. With a diamond like this, however, I can curve the ray’s trajectory so that it can strike anywhere in the entire world! It took all this time for a pony with the skills to cut such a gem to come along. I've had this order out with every boutique and jewelry store in Equestria for at least thirty years. Who would have thought somepony from humble little Ponyville would be the one to bring an end to my wait. I had feared I would pass beyond the veil without seeing my labor come to fruition, but now, at long last, my magnum opus will be perfected!” He was nearing the bottom of the stack of papers.
“And let me guess, you're going to get your revenge on Princess Celestia by testing it on Canterlot?” She held her breath.
“Of course not!” The squat unicorn peered from around the side of the clipboard, and shook his head at Derpy in disapproval. “Princess Celestia would not be immune to the effect of a ray this powerful. She would die, and the sun would be locked in place forever. One side of the planet would be scorched bare, and the other would freeze solid. The world would end! How dreadful! Do you think I'm mad!?”
As Deathray returned to signing papers, Derpy released the pent up air from her lungs. Everything would be alright, after all. Once she got home, she would tell Twilight Sparkle what she had learned, and one quick letter to the Princess would see this horrible machine permanently dismantled. Deathray signed the last sheet of paper, then tapped the pen against the clipboard, signaling the completion of the task.
“No, I'd never test it on Canterlot,” he said. “I'm going to test it on Ponyville, instead. Now, take your clipboard and be on your way.”
Derpy said not one word as she walked over, calmly took the clipboard out of the air, tucked it into her saddlebag, and closed the flap. Then, she smiled at Withers Deathray with every ounce of charm she could muster.
“Have a wonderful day,” she said.
Then, she grabbed the diamond in her teeth and ran like all the horrors of Tartaros were nipping at her tail.
As Derpy flew over the courtyard, every statue she had earlier seen came to life at once. The enormous cat statues leaped at her, slashing with claws like knives. The pegasus and bird statues took flight to pursue her, the earth pony statues ran beneath her, and the unicorn statues fired balls of light which exploded into pale purple fire and lightning all around her. Miraculously, she was able to dodge the magical onslaught.
As she cleared the outer wall, taking the moment's reprieve from the magical artillery to stuff the diamond into her saddlebag, she saw the earth pony, unicorn, and cat statues simply break down the gate and continue to follow her. As Derpy flew, her pursuers dashed up the crater's slope. Worse, the pegasus and bird statues were closing the distance with unnatural speed.
“Oh, come on!” Derpy moaned. “Their wings don't even have feathers or skin or anything. This isn't even fair!” Looking back to check her pursuers, she saw Deathray boarding his strange, old airship. He would soon join the chase. Derpy struck at the sky with her wings and propelled herself downward as she cleared the crest of the crater, using the dive to put distance between herself and the bizarre, rusty golems that hunted her. Soon, she was above the treetops.
This was, without a doubt, the second or third worst day Derpy had ever had. She was tired and hungry, and everything in the world seemed to want to eat and/or kill her. If she was overtaken by the iron pegasi, she'd be knocked to the ground. If the fall didn't kill her, she'd be ripped to shreds by the statues below. To make matters worse, every time one of the unicorn statues got a solid line of sight on her, another ball of energy would hurtle upward from the trees and explode somewhere within a stone's throw of her body. The frosting on the muffin?
If I don't find some way out of this, he'll fire that thing at Ponyville! All my friends! The Doctor! Dinky!
Derpy's wings, sore and and weary, somehow managed to find more strength. All the same, the terrible statues continued to gain. They were only a short ways off her tail, now. Her mind raced, considering every option.
Can't go low. There are more of them down there. Can't go high, either. They'll catch up even faster.
BOOM! A ball of lightning exploded off her port flank, crackling as it dissipated. She caught a whiff of her own smoldering fur.
Now's the part where I think it can't get any worse, and then it gets worse.
As if in response to her thought, Derpy felt the hair all over her body standing up. She had felt this same sensation once before. It was the day she had gone permanently cross-eyed. She was helping build a simple thunderstorm, and had gotten caught in the middle of a lightning bolt. She had never forgotten how it felt those moments before the strike.
Derpy whipped her head around backwards and saw Withers Deathray, his ship now at the rear of the pack. A vortex of purple-blue energy larger than the unicorn himself was swirling around his horn, and it was pointed directly at her. Derpy was stricken with distilled terror. Then, without warning, there occurred the rarest phenomenon known to pony kind:
Derpy Hooves got an idea.
What's a safe place to be in a thunder storm?
Derpy spread her wings wide and pitched her body upwards to put on the brakes. The nearest pegasus statue flew straight towards her, and just as it lowered its skull-like, wrought-iron head to knock her from the sky, she rolled over on her back, hooked her rear hooves into its iron ribs, and pulled herself in amidst them. There was a thunderclap that seemed to make all the sky quake around her, and arcs of electricity coruscated over the iron statue that surrounded her body.
“Yeowch!” Derpy yelped in pain.
She had not been shocked. The statue had conducted Deathray’s lightning bolt away from her body. However, the electricity had heated the statue tremendously. She was more than obliged to kick herself free of it as it began to fall towards the treetops, its enchantment disrupted by Deathray's powerful spell. Her fur was blackened in several places where she had been touching the statue, but the burns weren't serious.
Well that's one; only half a dozen to go. And that's just the flyers. I won't last much longer like this.
Flying for dear life, Derpy realized that she didn't have long before Deathray charged another lightning bolt. The flying statues were no longer pursuing her so closely. Deathray, obviously in telepathic control of all his automatons, had no intention of allowing her to use the same trick to evade him twice. Another of the unicorn statues' lightning balls exploded just below her.
I can't fight this. I can't outfly it. What can I do? There has to be something!
It was then that Ghastly Gorge came back into view. The statues on the ground wouldn't be able to cross it. It was just a stroke of dumb luck, really.
I'll take dumb luck. It's the only kind I have!
Derpy dove for the opposite side of the canyon. If she could get into the trees, Deathray couldn't pursue her in his flying machine, and she might even be able to evade the flying statues.
It was a long, fast dive with a lazy trajectory, It was nowhere near as suicidal as the game of dragon chicken had been, but it was still dangerous. Derpy would have to pick out an opening in the trees and align herself with it in a matter of seconds. Even as she began to do so, she felt her mane and fur stand on end.
She heard the thunder only a moment after the foliage swallowed her up. She felt the heat and heard the shattering of some tree or other as the lightning vaporized the water inside it. Her ears rang – had been ringing since the first of the energy balls had exploded around her back at the mansion. All the same, for the first time since she had taken that diamond in mouth, she thought she might have a chance to get away.
She rocked and rolled and zigged and zagged between the trees, never looking back. Occasionally, she would hear the loud smash of one of the winged statues plowing into a tree trunk.
They might be fast, but they're not so nimble, are they?
After some time, the crashing noises stopped. Derpy chanced a quick glance back, and was very nearly rewarded by hitting a tree, herself. She was indeed alone, however. All of the statues were gone; probably scattered through the forest in a thousand pieces. Relieved, she allowed herself to glide downward, and once it was within reach, she touched her hooves to the ground and jogged off her inertia.
She knew better than to let herself be seen above the treetops. Deathray was still up there, somewhere. She would have to walk west until she emerged from the forest. It would take at least twice as long as flying. She wasn't excited about the prospect of trudging through this dark, dangerous place, but there was no other option.
* * *
Derpy walked westward for at least an hour, her stomach growling all the way. She kept hoping to pass a bush with some berries on it or some sort of a fruit tree, but it seemed that such things simply didn't grow in the Everfree Forest. With no sun reaching the forest floor there wasn't even any grass for her to graze – and right then, she would have, degrading or not.
“What do the animals here eat?” she asked no one in particular.
Just then, she heard a sound. It was a staccato thump that seemed to be growing slowly in volume, and it was coming from behind her. A leaf on a nearby tree quivered with each distant, hollow whump, and Derpy herself was beginning to notice the vibration. She didn't know what kind of creature was coming this way, but she knew one thing: it was big.
Images of every colossal creature rumored to inhabit the forest flashed through Derpy's mind; hydras, dragons, giant apes, Ursas, great boars that stood twice as tall as Princess Celestia. Derpy's pulse quickened, her chest heaved, and she strained to keep her composure. She could run or she could hide.
I'm too tired to run, anymore. I'd never get away, she thought. Fueled by adrenaline, Derpy quickened her pace as much as she could stand, and scanned the forest for anywhere that might serve to conceal her from whatever it was that was coming her way.
The thumps grew louder, and the ground began to quake with each footfall. Frantically, she looked around for a place to hide. A small cave in the side of a low, eroded hillside caught her attention. It was just big enough for a pony to fit inside its entrance. Hopefully, the creature wouldn't be able to follow her inside. She tucked her wings in close to her body, and wriggled her way through the tiny opening.
The cave was cramped, dark, and musty. Roots hung from its ceiling, and its walls bore the soft, eroded remains of old claw marks. It had been the den of some kind of animal, once. A little ways in, Derpy found a small chamber where there was just enough room for her to turn around and get a view of what was outside. Once she had, she wished she hadn't, for what she saw was more awful than any Ursa or hydra.
It was the remaining statues. Somehow, they had gotten across the canyon. A great cat prowled by, followed by an earth pony statue and a skeletal, iron wolf, but most horrifying of all was what brought up the rear. It was Deathray's airship. Its balloon was mysteriously gone, and it was stomping through the forest on a pair of mechanical, bird-like legs.
Derpy ducked back as far into the tiny cave as she possibly could. As she backed up, her right rear hoof landed on a rock the size of a grapefruit, and it rolled out from under her. She fell back on her chest, belly, and haunches, and just lay there, frozen in fear. The rock sat mockingly in front of her quivering, yellow eyes. She couldn't run. She had nowhere to go. Her mind was empty of ideas, and her body empty of energy. All she could do was wait and hope she had not been heard.
The thudding of the flying machine's chicken feet stopped. For a moment, Derpy was certain she had been discovered. Then she heard Deathray's voice.
“I can sense the diamond. It's somewhere around here. Look for it, you idiots, and if you find that google-eyed gray pegasus, bring her to me!”
Derpy gritted her teeth and rolled her face in the dirt, a silent gesture of frustration. He knew a gem-finding spell. Of course he knew a gem-finding spell! He was an old unicorn who had spent his entire life studying magic. How could he not know a gem-finding spell? And of course he was more than powerful enough to levitate the statues over the gorge. Hiding in this cave had guaranteed she'd be caught. Derpy had never felt so stupid in all her life -- and that was impressive.
“Come out, come out, Ms. Hooves! I believe I've found you!” Deathray punctuated his gleeful declaration with a kick above the cave's entrance from one of the machine's giant feet. Dirt showered from the ceiling, and Derpy squeaked in surprise and fear.
“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.
“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.
