Chapter 1: Chaosapalooza
The Chaoticlysm. The day that Discord, spirit of Chaos and Disharmony, broke free of his stone prison was considered by most ponies as a day of great fear, confusion, and change. For six young mares it was the beginning of a grand adventure, rich with introspection, personal growth, and a re-forging a strengthening of their bonds of friendship. But, for one special pegasus, life would never be the same again.
That morning, as three young fillies stood arguing about an innocuous seeming statue, Derpy Hooves was happily flying along her route, delivering the News Of The Day to a waking town and reminiscing about the banana–and–daffodil muffin that she had for breakfast. When the fighting of the girls caused the stone of the statute to crack, something happened that drove thoughts of muffins right out of Derpy's effervescent mind. Her thoughts rearranged themselves, focusing more sharply than she could remember them having ever been before.
At that moment, she saw it. A more efficient way to deliver the papers. She sped along, finishing her deliveries in record time. She felt so pleased with herself for thinking of it, she decided to reward herself one of the Cake's delicious goodies.
As Discord took his first breath in centuries, Derpy's mind continued to sharpen, offset eyes constantly scanning and analyzing everything that she saw. When she flew past a strange pink cloud hovering low over the ground, she was immediately aware of its component parts. Or, perhaps that was ingredients. Water, sugar and artificial food coloring composed the cloud, while pouring out was water, lactose, milk fat, and cocoa. She pondered this anomalous apparition for a moment before deciding, with pure logic, that such a thing as a chocolate milk-raining cotton candy cloud simply could not exist. At the thought, the cloud vanished at though it had never been.
She resumed her expedition towards Sugarcube Corner when a strange idea caused her to pause.
"Wouldn't it have been amusing," she thought, "to drag that cloud over to the Ponyville Lake and empty its contents into the water?"
Her eyes widened and she dropped the ground in shock as the realization of what she thought hit her. She shook her head, trying to clear the accompanying image. No, she would never do something so mean and willfully destructive. She couldn't. Could she? Besides, she told herself, that cotton candy cloud wasn't even real. And with that, the cloud that had just started reforming behind her popped back out of existence.
She decided to walk the rest of since since she was already on the ground and would have to land anyway to enter the shop. Along the way, her eyes kept lighting on items that, for the most part, were completely innocent. Her mind, however, started thinking of ways to use them for pranks. They seem harmless; dumping a pail of water on someone's head, high-speed pie to the face, a rolling pin or rake dropped under someone's hooves. She smiled as she walked, allowing herself to indulge in her fantasies.
As the day wore on and true chaos overwhelmed Ponyville, Derpy remained blissfully unaware. Safe in a field of logic, she went about her job building Ponyville's daily mail, completing the task in half her usual time.
Everywhere that her vision encompassed, the pure logic of her mind cause reality to forcibly reassert itself. Soap roads return to dirt, night back into day. One stallion, beset on all sides by buffeting throw pillows, was freed from his torment, only to be re-attacked when Derpy looked away. She was not, after all, stronger than a god. Once her attention shifted, Chaos ruled once again.
She found her mind drifting into pranks, but these weren't the innocent jokes of earlier. She didn't even recoil from the thoughts of holding a pony underwater until the very last second, or dropping a colt into the lake from 30 hoof–widths up. A sly smile spread across her face as the logical part of her calculate the maximum height to keep a drop from being fatal.
A wicked grin split her face as she spotted Ponyville's favorite cerulean speedster, Rainbow Dash, loafing about on a small cloud above the town. A quick mental calculation showed that Dashie would be able to twist around and deploy her wings just in time to keep herself from slamming into the ground. She lifted slowly towards the cloud, careful not to make a sound, watching to make sure that Rainbow Dash didn't look her way. Once she was in range, she gave the cloud a swift kick, smiling as Dash fell with a screech.
Derpy drifted back to the ground as Dash snapped her wings open, catching herself just in the nick of time. She glared at the gray pony.
"Derpy, what the hell? I could have been killed!"
"I just don't know what went wrong." Derpy gave her most clueless smile, her eyes pointing off in opposite directions to reinforce the impression.
"It's fine, no one's hurt. Just be more careful, will you?"
"Sure thing, Rainbow Dash." She laughed to herself as she flew off, not seeing Rainbow go back to a cloud, or seeing her friends come and take her off. She started when she saw a pink earth pony fly by. Earth pony? Fly? She jerked her head around to look, but the other pony was gone. She shook her head, trying to convince her self that she hadn't seen what she thought she'd seen.
Shortly after, Derpy screeched to a halt as a giant rainbow split the sky, separating and covering Ponyville with a transparent pink dome. When it disappeared, she stood frozen, thoughts of mischief vanishing from her head like smoke on a windy day. She found the new-found intellect still intact, immediately recognizing the need to hide the difference from her earlier mindset.
Chapter 2: Mare-do-Bad
For the next few days, as everypony recovered from Discord's fun time, Derpy pretended to be her normal carefree self. She flew into things, she dropped things, she broke a great many things. She found that deliberately being clumsy wasn't easy.
While she was busy being what everypony expected her to be, Derpy was constantly noticing how Ponyville could be built or ran better. Sometimes she would even do something about it, like dropping a note into the mailbox of the mayor, or whichever pony would best be able to benefit from her insights. It made her happy to see her suggestions put to use, making other ponies happy.
She also started to notice strange things happening around Ponyville. Stuff would fall from windows, or break without warning. She happened to be near when the balcony of the retirement home broke, and she cheered along with everyone else when Rainbow Dash saved the falling ponies.
Derpy grew quiet when she saw a strange pink pony slip around the corner of the home. Nopony else had seemed to notice her, and when Derpy went to investigate a moment later, there was no pony there. She blinked in surprise; there was no way that an earth pony could have disappeared that quickly. There weren't any doors or openings that she could have ducked into.
Later that day, Derpy was flying over the construction site for a new house when she saw the same pink pony running around the crane a second before the smoke started pouring out of the cab. The instrument panel shorted out, sending the crane swinging out of control. The beam that it was carrying smashed into the frame, causing a chain reaction that brought the building crashing down on the construction workers.
Derpy caught a glimpse of a strange pony dressed in purple with a hat and cape before she headed off in pursuit of the pink pony, having spotted her leaving the wreckage. She was almost close enough to touch her when the other pony darted around the corner of City Hall. Derpy followed immediately, but she was gone. She flew up into the air, looking down at the town in confusion. Suddenly, she spotted the other pony's propeller beanie. But, impossibly, she was all the way across town, heading into Sweet Apple Acres. Derpy shook her head and headed for home. She'd think over what she'd seen before bed.
Chapter 3: Bad Apples.
When she woke up, she had her morning muffin and coffee. She put on her saddle bags, filled them with newspapers, and headed out to deliver the paper. She could tell that something was wrong as she neared Sweet Apple Acres. There was a sour-sweet smell in the air. As she flew over the orchards, she looked down and almost fell out of the sky. Over half of the apple trees looked dead. She set down beside a distraught looking Apple family.
“Applejack, what happened?”
Applejack, Big Macintosh and Apple Bloom were standing outside of their house, staring at the orchard. Big Macintosh looked more solemn than ever, while Apple Bloom was crying, almost screaming. Applejack turned to look at Derpy, her eyes haunted and old. Her voice was hollow, dead.
“We came out this morning, and it was all dead. 2/3 of the crop, gone. The trees died, the apples rotting on the branches. All over night. Everything was just fine last night. It was too much for Granny Smith. She... she didn't make it.”
Applejack broke down and started crying, burying her head in her legs. Big Macintosh wiped a tear from his eye, struggling to keep his composure as the head of the Apple family. He lifted his head high, and breathed deep.
“The crop's not all gone. We can still come back from this. It'll be hard, and it'll take some time, but we can do it. We're Apples. We don't give up.”
Apple Bloom started to quiet at Big Macintosh's speech, sniffling when he finished.
“Y-yeah. We're App...Apples. Come on, Big Sis. Let's...let's go see what's left.”
Derpy looks back towards the orchard, starting when she saw a now-familiar flash of pink. She took to the sky over the orchard, scanning the dead trees for the pony. She spotted her off to the left...but no, there she was off to the right. She watched the pony step behind a tree, but she didn't come back from behind. She looked around rapidly, spotting her at least 50 hoof-widths away. She watched closely, watching the pony step behind a tree and step out from behind another.
Derpy shook her head, setting that aside to think about later. She folded her wings and went into a dive, hoping to catch the pink pony before she moved again. She watched in dismay as the pony looked towards her, her wings snapping out to catch her as she caught sight of the strange pony's odd swirled eyes. The other pony stuck her tongue out and pranced insolently behind another tree. Derpy swung her head back and forth looking, but she was unable to see the other. She spun around as she heard a voice.
“Yoohoo, I'm over here. Catch me if you can.” The other pony giggled and ran into the Everfree Forest.
Derpy landed at the edge of the forest, shivering a bit before she gathered herself together and walked beneath the trees. Her eyes constantly scanned around, nervous about going so deep into the Everfree Forest. Her hoof-falls echo strangely back to her.
“Who are you? Why can you see me?” The voice comes from the trees. “I'm Screwball. What's your name?”
“D-Derpy. Derpy H-Hooves.”
“Are you scared, Derpy Hooves? You sound scared.” The voice seemed to keep moving around her. One moment Screwball sounded like she was off to the left, but halfway through the sentence, she was behind, then she was above in the canopy. Derpy's eyes were rolling a bit, air snorting out through her nostrils as she kept walking. Off in the distance, she heard the howl and clack of the Timberwolves, but she didn't concern herself with them. The true danger was right here. She looked up towards where she had last heard the pony called Screwball.
“Why are you doing this? The balcony, the crane. Why'd you do that to the Apple's orchard?”
Screwball dropped from the trees in front of Derpy, landing lightly on her hooves. It didn't look like she had a mouth, though. Her voice still came from the trees. Worse yet, it changed locations with every word. Above, behind, left, right, even coming from below her hooves.
“Why? Why Derpy, because it's fun. Don't you like to have FUN?”
With the last word, the voice returned to Screwball, a mouth appeared on her face, and she lept at Derpy, eyes blazing with a bright purple fire. At the last moment, she vanished, a giggle echoing from the point at where she'd been. The giggle swirled around and around Derpy's head like a thing alive. She could swear that she could almost see it.
“Poor, poor Derpy. So confused, so misunderstood. So amusing.” The voice echoed around, seeming to come from the very trees. “They laugh at you, you know. Every time you break something, every time you get lost. They laugh and laugh and laugh.”
Her voice changed, and now it wasn't Screwball's.
“That Derpy, she's so clumsy.” Rainbow Dash.
“She's so stupid.” Twilight Sparkle.
“At least she's always good for a laugh.” Pinkie Pie.
“Yes, but those horrid eyes. You can't tell if she's talking to you, or the pony behind you.” Rarity.
“She's a dang menace. She's a danger to herself and every pony around.” Applejack.
They all started laughing, the sound driving Derpy to tears. She huddled on the ground, putting her hooves over her ears.
“Stop it. Please, stop.”
The laughter cut off abruptly. She got back to her hooves, shaking a bit.
“Who...What are you?”
“Who am I? What am I?” The voice came from everywhere, filling Derpy's whole world. Booming and powerful, it was the voice of an angry god. “I am the Spawn of Silliness. The Child of Chaos. I am the Echo of Eris. The Devilspawn of Disharmony. I. Am. The Daughter. Of DISCORD!”
When she said Discord, Derpy's world seemed to crack, tilting and spinning out of control. She struggled to keep standing. She shut her eyes tight against the onslaught.
“My daddy is Discord. When those meddlesome busyponies trapped him in stone, it fell to me to spread Chaos across the land. I will make him proud. Maybe, if I do a good enough job, maybe Daddy will come home.”
Her voice at the end was so sad that Derpy could feel her heart breaking.
“Oh Screwball, I'm so sor-”
“Silence. I don't need your pity. I will have my Daddy back, if I have to burn all of Equestria to the ground to do it.”
The world spun and twisted and folded in such strange ways that Derpy felt that she may vomit up her mind. She closed her eyes more tightly, concentrating with all that she had.
“This isn't real. It can't be happening. It's not real. It's not real. It. Is. Not. REAL.”
With a yell, her eyes sprang open, glowing brilliantly with the light of pure logic. The world stopped it's impossible motions and Screwball stood there in the middle of the path, looking confused. She looked quizzically at Derpy, her eyes wondering.
“You are something different.” She started to fade away, her voice doing the same. “We will meet again, Derpy Hooves. And next time, I won't be so pleasant.”
She was gone, her last word echoing on the air. Derpy shivered and took to the sky, flying through a hole in the canopy. She started to head for home when she realized that there was a weight on her back. She looked back cautiously and let out a relieved laugh when she saw that, in all the excitement, she hadn't finished her paper delivery.
“The more things change,” she said, to nopony in particular, “The more they stay the same.”
With that, she flew off to deliver The News Of The Day, and maybe have a muffin. In the back of her mind, she was thinking about Screwball, and planning what she would do if she ever returned.
