The Derpy Hooves Deception

Lake Ponyville.
13:03, Thursday.

Pif... Pif... Pif. Pif. Pif.Pif.Pifpifpif.

Bloop.

"Awww..." Apple Bloom sighed. "I thought that one'd be way more'n nine!"

"Well," Sweetie Belle said. "You still beat my eight skips."

"I suppose."

"Okay girls, my turn!" Scootaloo stepped up to the water's edge with a curiously triangular and flat rock.

"Hang on there, Scoots." Apple Bloom said. "Are ya sure that's a rock? Looks almost like a piece a tile to me."

"Yeah," Sweetie said. "No rock could be that flat. Let me see."

"Okay, fine. Here." Scootaloo proffered the rock, and Sweetie took it in her aura. Apple Bloom stepped up close as Sweetie spun it around and the two examined it.

"It sure looks like rock, but I ain't never seen one so perfectly flat."

"See," Scootaloo said. "I'm just good at rock hunting too."

"Well, it feels a bit odd, but I guess it's just some weird type of rock," Sweetie said

"So give it back and watch my throw!"

Sweetie shrugged before returning the stone. "I already lost anyway."

Scootaloo grinned, then hefted the rock in one hoof and did a few practice swings. Once she was certain she had the weight balanced where she wanted it, she slung her hoof forward with all her might, spinning the triangular shape, and sending it skimming out over the water. The trio watched anxiously as the rock made first contact with the water.

Pif.

It skipped almost as high as the initial arc, then, gliding down again, glanced off the surface and sailed further.

Pif.

This pattern continued for far longer than anypony expected, even for a perfect skipping stone.

Pif.

Pif.

Pif. Pif. Pif.

Eventually it began to lose momentum, but was already so far away that it was becoming difficult for the foals on the shore to count the impacts easily. They reached twenty, then thirty, and were somewhere near forty when the final skips blurred together and the rock sank, nearly halfway across the small lake.

"Wooo hoo!" Scootaloo shouted, pumping her hoof in the air. "That was awesome!"

Apple Bloom grumbled something about "cheater rocks," which was pointedly ignored by the celebrating pegasus.

"I win!"

"Yeah yeah yeah..." Apple Bloom drawled. "I see that." She hated the idea of painting their clubhouse up in rainbow colors, and had argued for a sensible red and orange motif. It could be worse though. Sweetie had wanted a three-layered faux finish with a mural on one side. At least Scootaloo's paint choice could be implemented quickly.

"Way to go, Scootaloo!" Sweetie congratulated her friend. Sure, the paint scheme would be garish, but at least it'd be something besides the same drab earth tones for a bit. And at the rate they burned the place down, they'd be picking new colors by fall anyway.

"Thanks, Sweetie! Did you see how far that went! That must be some kind of record!"

"Hang on a minute!" Apple Bloom shouted.

"Woah, no need to get angry. I didn't mean to rub it in."

"No," Apple Bloom said. "Not that. Look behind you! Look at the lake!"

The other ponies turned, and in the middle of the lake was a bubbling eruption of some kind, foaming the surface with a roiling mound of water, suffused with a bright green glow.

"What the hay?" Apple Bloom said.

"No idea." Sweetie Belle responded.

"Is that..." Scootaloo held a hoof out to point. "Is that a... shark?"


----

The Ponyville Persistence Project, Deep Beneath the Ponyville Post Office.
Forty-eight nautical minutes later.

"So you're telling me some foals just happened to find an ancient Sea Pony power sigil?" the commander said.

"Well, it was the Cutie Mark Crusaders," Agent Sweetie Drops responded.

"And they used it as a skipping stone?"

"As I said: Crusaders."

Commander Ditzy Doo pressed a hoof to her forehead and rubbed her temples, hoping to somehow erase the headache that kind of improbability caused. "So," she continued, looking back across the briefing table... and the ceiling. "What's the current sit-rep?"

"Flitter and Cloudchaser are out surveying things again. Their earlier reports suggest the rising water is spreading slowly for now, but is going to reach the pass within the hour. Once that happens..."

Derpy hung her head. "Ponyville is toast, I know."

"Yeah, everything comes right down the stream bed and the town is under water before sundown."

"We can not let that happen!"

"Understood, ma'am."

"Any word on closing the portal?"

"Not yet. Trouble Shoes and Goldie managed to retrieve the artifact," Sweetie Drops slid a triangular stone across the table, "but the portal seems to be disconnected from it. They're diving again to investigate further. I actually need to get back into the field too. The new sea life is already posing several problems."

"Thanks, Bon Bon. You can go."

Bon Bon nodded and trotted out the door.

Derpy spun the the stone in front of her on the table as she allowed herself a brief bit of thought about their mission here in Ponyville. The Ministry had formed The Ponyville Persistence Project shortly after the return of Princess Luna, as the previously insignificant town suddenly found itself facing epic scale disasters which threatened to wipe if off the map on a nearly weekly basis. Agents were assembled, given cover identities, and figured they were just in for another tour of duty. Now, nearly half a decade later, they'd all come to love this quirky little town. Many, herself included, had even started to prefer their cover identities. The names they were known by amongst their friends somehow came to feel more real than their "true" names. Ponyville was more than just a mission now, it was their home, and they were damned well going to protect it!

But how would they do it this time? A lake filling with seawater and the sharks and other dangers that went with it. A Sea Pony curse maybe? Some ancient weapon?

She looked at the stone itself. Other than its unusually flat and triangular shape, the only thing that stood out was the glowing eye in the middle of it. Of course, the foals that found it claimed that it certainly wasn't glowing when they'd thrown it into the lake. So what triggered the sigil?

Standing, Derpy picked up the rock and mimed skipping it. She thought about the motions, the water, the flight.

Was it energy from the throw? Unlikely. Contact with water? Probably not, if they'd found it just sitting in the open, rain would've hit it before now.

She mimed a few more throws, and realized that, as she did so, it felt like the rock gave some resistance to her motions. Especially when she twisted it. She tried it in her other forehoof, and the resistance magically disappeared.

"Cloudy, get in here!"

Cloud Kicker opened the door.

"Yeah, boss?'

"I need you to zip out to the lake, ask the divers what the portal looks like. Tell them to be exact!"

"Why boss, you got an idea?" Cloudy said, staring at the boss's wildly flitting eyes.

"Something like that."

----

Lake Ponyville.
Four thousand and ninety one wingbeats later.

Cloud Kicker swept in low over the lake, and put a hoof to her mouth, whistling loudly. One of the ponies in the water looked up, pulling a mask and snorkel up onto his forehead. Cloudy moved into a hover, but the pony, whom she could now tell was Snowflake, held up a hoof as if to say "just a moment" then put his face back under the water. There was a swooshing noise, a thud, and then a shark—who had just been cold-cocked in the face—floated to the surface beside the massively muscled stallion.

"Yeah!! Get some!" He looked up. "What's up, Cloudy?"

"Boss wants to know what the portal looks like."

"Umm, greenish blue."

"She said to be exact. I need details!"

"Kinda hard to pay attention to details," Snowflake said, pushing away something attached to a menacing looking dorsal fin. "Though I did notice that it's full of friggin' sharks, if that helps!"

"Seriously Snowflake, I need to know. Her eyes were doing The Thing."

Snowflake rolled his eyes. "Alright, it's about a shoulder and a half high, roughly circular in cross section, fringed with spiraling distortions. Apparent thickness is maybe half a hoof, though hard to tell with the fringing and..." he turned in the water, punching another shark... "the friggin' sharks!"

"Thanks!"

Snowflake nodded. "I just hope that's enough for The Thing to work." He pulled his masked back on and dove.

"The Thing" with Derpy was something everypony knew about, or at least everypony had seen. Originally, it seemed just part of her cover identity as a klutz. Her eyes never seemed to face the same direction she was actually looking. Most of the time, it was subtle, but when big things were happening, it became more pronounced, each eye moving rapidly and independently, but with seeming purpose, almost as if they were tracking things no one else could see.

The longer the team had been around her, the more they were surprised by the solutions she could identify and implement. Things that seemed almost impossible to predict or know, she somehow expected. They began to correlate the two, and realized "the thing with her eyes" almost always got worse shortly before she came up with some borderline-insane—yet ultimately successful—solution. The running theory had become that it was tied to her special talent.

Then, a few years ago, an old colleague of Derpy's had been visiting, and said her eyes weren't always that way, that it'd only happened after she'd become friends with Time Turner. Oh, and the rumors about that pony were even wilder. They said his special talent was time itself. That he had a mastery of it, and even traveled through it. The commander still spent a lot of time around him, and even though he wasn't part of the Ministry of A.S.S., he somehow seemed to be involved in an awful lot of their interventions.

The commander had never given any official word on his status, and everypony else had been too worried to question it. After wall, when a stallion leaps out of a bush banging together two coconuts just in time to scare away a giant spider queen—who coincidently has a phobia of coconuts—seconds before she eats you, you aren't likely to question him on his authorization to be there, or his involvement with your superior officer. And you certainly didn't question your boss about her lazy eye or the not-so-crazy-now order she'd given to have the entire team pack coconuts before departing the day before.

Cloud Kicker flew back to the post office with haste as she thought, and resolved that once things had settled down, she was going to be the one to finally ask.

----

Post Office Sub-Sub-Basement.
One determined pondering later.

"I knew it!" Derpy exclaimed, after being told about the twisting fringes of the portal. She attempted to spin the sigil stone withershins on the table. "Look, see how it resists?"

"Okay..." Cloud Kicker said, uncertain.

"That's how it was activated. It's about symbolic motion. Scootaloo is right-hoofed, so when she went to skip the stone, she naturally spun it clockwise." Derpy gave the stone a light spin clockwise to demonstrate. "The sigil's chirality wants it to go that way. So when she spun it really hard..." she gave the spinning stone another tap to speed it up. "It activated." The glowing eye of the sigil lit up brighter.

"So spinning it activates it?"

"Not quite. Technically, the sigil is the observer. It was probably part of a much larger ritualistic structure. Maybe a column in a temple or something like it. The sigil is meant to be used in a ceremony, one where other elemental symbols rotate around it. Then it takes that energy in and uses it to activate the portal."

"So you know how to stop it?" Cloudy dared. She didn't want to seem impatient, but the stream through town had already started to flood with brackish water, and the townsponies were starting to notice.

"Not yet," Derpy said, one eye seemingly tracing figure eights. "But I asked Silent Night to go delve the archives in Canterlot for more info. I'm expecting to hear back any moment now."

"So... What should I be doing?"

"Oh, sorry, agent." Derpy turned her head toward Cloud Kicker, and made a concerted effort to bring both eyes to the same bearing. It was mostly successful. "Yes, you're dismissed. Go help out at the lake."

Cloudy nodded and trotted out the door.

"Punch a shark for me!" she heard the commander say just as the door swung closed behind her. There was then a muffled "pop" which she ignored.

----

Royal Canterlot Archives.
Erstwhile.


"Seriously! Fish coloration?" Silent Night huffed. The dark black pegasus dropped another pile of marine biology books on the table. "There's some ancient portal about to destroy Princess Twilight's hometown, and she wants me to find Lemurian deep water fishes with counter-clockwise coloration patterns!"

Clean Slate shrugged. "I know, but Ponyville is her jurisdiction. Besides, you read the reports. That town would've been destroyed years ago if it wasn't for her and her team. Maybe have a little faith?"

Silent Night rolled her eyes. "Fine, but I just wish she'd said why!"

"Why what?"

"Why any of it? Why Lemuria? Why deep sea? Why counter-clockwise?"

"Oh, first two are easy. The salinity, temperature, and mineral content coming through the portal matches that of mesopelagic zones near the Lemuric atolls."

Quirking an eyebrow, Silent Night looked up from her book. "And you know that how?"

"Bumped into Bon Bon on our way out. She had a water sample report in her hooves."

Shaking her head, Silent Night went back to flipping pages. She'd probably never get used to Clean Slate and his occasionally eidetic memory.

"Fine," she said, thrusting a book toward Clean Slate. "Just help me look!"

----

The P.P.P.
Later, but not by much.

There was a loud "pop" just after the door swung closed, and Derpy Hooves looked up toward Clean Slate and Silent Night, safely teleported from Canterlot.

"So you found one?" She asked perfunctorily.

Moving to the desk, Silent Night plopped down a large tome, flipping it open to a bookmarked page. She pointed. "Is that what you're looking for?"

Derpy examined the book with one eye. It was an aquatic bestiary, opened to a page with a detailed drawing of a shark with a bizarre, counter-clockwise spiral pattern down its sides. That it was a very precise geometric spiral wasn't what made it bizarre though.

She pulled out another book of her own, and placed the two side by side, comparing drawings. Yes, what made the shark bizarre was that it had the exact opposite spiral pattern as one of the small freshwater salmonids that lived in Ponyville Lake.

"Bon Bon!" Derpy shouted. "Get in here!"

Special Agent Sweetie Drops had just stepped stepped off the elevator into the P.P.P. headquarters. How in the world did the boss know she was here already? She didn't ponder it for too long though, and broke into a quick trot to Derpy's office.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Have you seen any sharks like this in the lake?"

Bon Bon looked at the picture. Over the past hour, she'd had several "unique experiences" which guaranteed she'd never forget this particular variety of shark. The teeth... Oh Celestia, the teeth!

"Yes, several of them, ma'am," she calmly responded.

"Perfect!"

The other ponies in the room looked at each other, but dared not say anything.

Well, all ponies except Silent Night. "What?" she said. "How is the having blood thirsty sharks like that in the lake 'perfect?'"

"I'll explain on the way." Standing, Derpy Hooves grabbed the artifact with the sigil and headed toward the door. "Come on everypony, we're moving operations to the lakeside! Double time!"

There was, to put it mildly, a sudden hubbub of activity.

----

Lakeside, New.
Fifty-seven relative minutes later.

Cloud Kicker found herself stationed at the edge of the forest, more than a mile from even the lake's current shoreline, hovering above the trees. The boss has ordered her and several other pegasi to form a perimeter at that distance "to make sure nothing escapes." For her own part, Cloudy had no idea what would be escaping from an underwater portal that would need a pegasus to stop it a mile away. Frankly, she was a bit scared to find out. She'd have to—

Her thoughts were interrupted as she noticed a brown stallion trotting out of the forest below her. She swooped down, and saw it was Time Turner. "Time Turner!" she yelled.

The stallion didn't respond.

"Time Turner!" she tried again, still with no response. Then, she thought back to something she'd heard the Commander call him. "Doctor!"

The stallion looked up. "Oh, hi there! Didn't see you. You with your wings way up there. Flying... like a horse. Like a flying horse."

Cloud Kicker landed next to the stallion. "What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, me? Little ol' me? Don't mind me, just taking a walk!"

Eyebrows had never been more raised. "Oh, really?"

"Yes, just a nice walk by the peaceful lake where nothing is happening."

"I know about the disaster," Cloudy said.

"Disaster? What disaster? I don't know about—"

"Drop the act. I'm part of A.S.S. you know."

The Doctor made a snerking sound as he suppressed a laugh.

"Something funny?"

"You know what that acronym sounds like, right?"

"Yeah yeah, I know it's slang term for a donkey, but the Ministry was founded long before it meant anything offensive."

"Yes..." The Doctor said. "'Donkey.' That's what it sounds like."

Cloud Kicker rolled her eyes. Some ponies could be so immature. The Ministry of Alicorn Solecism Suppression had been around for over a century, long before there'd been any racially insensitive use of the word ass.

"So what is the Alicorn Snit Squad doing out here anyway?" The stallion asked.

"Like you don't know?" Cloud Kicker said, moving back to a hover and crossing her forelegs. She didn't like his tone. Yes, internally everypony called it the Alicorn Snit Squad, but outsiders didn't get that privilege in her mind.

"Why would I..." he trailed off as Cloudy gave a rather epic eye-roll.

"Okay, fine," he said, then looked around before leaning in conspiratorially. "The truth is that..." he looked around again. "I've never fought sharks before. I mean, actual sharks. Sure, there were those toothy fish the size of houses on Zirocon Omega, and the army of shark-men at that Ballet in Venice. Oh, and the sextuplet of shrieking, ship-swallowing, space sharks of Omicron Persei Eight. But never actual shark sharks!"

Most of the words sounded like Equish, but Cloudy was pretty certain she'd never heard any of them in that order before. "Just who the hell are you?"

The stallion was quick to respond, "Why, I'm The..." but trailed off again.

"Go on..."

"Umm..." he said, looking down at one of his forehooves as if seeing it for the first time. "Time Turner(?)"

Cloudy was pretty sure there was a question mark on that statement. "So why does Derpy call you Doctor? And she says it with a capital letter, mind you."

The brown stallion slumped onto his rear and hung his head. "I'm afraid I'm not really good at this."

"Good at what?"

"Lying."

"So don't lie."

"Then you wouldn't understand."

There was a rapid intake of breath from Cloud Kicker.

"No, I mean... I mean, it's difficult for me to explain in a way that you could understand."

Another sharp breath inward as Cloud Kicker tensed her hoof for a punch.

"Look look," The Doctor said, making placating motions with his hooves. "I don't mean to offend you. Far from it, but I'm just not that great at talking with peo... ponies. I mean, I'm great—astounding even—at talking to them, but not with them."

"So just try then!"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Okay, what do you want to know?"

"Why are you here?"

"Because something interesting is happening!"

"That's not an answer."

"Oh, I assure you, it is. It's the best answer there can be. Things are about to get interesting"—Cloudy noticed he said that word in a way that he clearly relished—"around here. I wouldn't miss it!"

She couldn't deny that. Whatever was going on was certainly "interesting" as Time Turner put it. "Dangerous," "horrible," and "disastrous" seemed like they'd be more appropriate however.

"Okay, fine." Maybe he was just a thrill seeker. "But who are you? What do you and the commander have to do with each other?"

"Commander?" He made a show of scratching his chin. "Commander... Oh yes, Derpy! Commander Derpy Hooves! How wonderful, isn't it? Has a nice whimsy to it, yet still a touch of gravitas!"

Cloud Kicker set back down on all fours and advanced on the stallion, leaning into his face. "What did you do to her!"

"Do?" The stallion recoiled, and tried to scoot backward on his rump. "I... I..."

"Her eyes! Somepony told me she used to be normal, but that she went away with you, and now her eyes are all... all..."

The Doctor stopped his attempt at retreat. "Are all what?" he prompted.

"Wonky!" There, she'd said it. "You can't have missed it. Her eyes never look at you, they look everywhere else, anywhere else, except where you think they should be!"

Standing, the stallion looked down at Cloud Kicker. At his full height, he was actually taller than her, and she'd forgotten that in all his seemingly innocent antics of sitting, twisting, laughing, etc. "What do they say I did?"

Finding herself suddenly at a disadvantage, Cloudy tried to recover with her own bout of nonchalance. "That you took her somewhere. That you... you..." It didn't last.

"That I broke her?"

Hanging her head, Cloud Kicker sighed. "Yeah."

"And what else do 'they' say about me?"

Cloud Kicker looked up. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, surely there are rumors upon rumors. Vast conspiracy theories all the way down to little nods in my direction as I pass hushed conversations in the market. What. Do. They. Say!?"

Suddenly less sure of herself, Cloud Kicker didn't want to answer. Gossip wasn't her thing. But... in for a bit, in for a bushel. "They say your special talent is time. That you... you go through it. That you steal away fillies with promises and return them damaged... or sometimes not at all."

The Doctor looked grim and serious. "And you, what do you say?"

"I... I don't know." It was the truth.

There was silence for a moment. Cloudy decided to broach it. "So... what is the truth."

The smile the stallion gave was genuine, but never reached his eyes. "There is not such thing as the truth. But, perhaps I can share with you a truth. One that I hold very dear."

Cloud Kicker nodded, and sat down on the grass beside the flooding lake, figuring there was perhaps a moment of peace to be had, even at this precipice of disaster.

----

Once upon a time, there was a traveler. He was very, very old, but also, very, very young. He had many faces.

He traveled far and wide, not just in this world, but across many. In his time, he met many, many wonderful beings. Sometimes, some of those beings managed to wedge themselves into his life, and even his hearts, and they'd travel with him for a time.

One of those beings was an amazing young mare from Equestria. The Traveler had never been to Equestria before, and so everything there was new to him. He loved new.

When he arrived, he found ponies to be rather odd. So many other places he'd been were filled with fighting, with war, and with death. Equestria was peaceful, and happy, and like no where else. Ponies were, by and large, nice to each other. He didn't understand it, but knew it was special right away.

As he explored Equestria, he found just being there eased pains deep within him which he realized he'd been carrying for far too long. He was, for the first time in a very, very, very long time, happy. This wasn't completely new, but his last memory of the genuine feeling was so ancient that it may as well have been.

Then he met her.

She was young, and naive, and foolish, and bold, and afraid, and heroic, and all those other wonderful things. She was everything the traveler feared he had lost in his long, long life. Then she smiled.

Her smile... Her smile could tilt the heavens, and her laugh wipe clean the stars!

So she joined him, and they went on wonderful adventures across the worlds.

They watched twin suns rise above Flanos.

They surfed the planet-spanning, liquid-methane waves of Decandia.

They helped pirates liberate Xanthia.

They helped the police capture the neo-pirates of Aihtnax.

They lived!

But then there was a war. They landed in it by mistake, and The Traveler said they should leave, that they could do nothing. But The Mare, she said they had to try. So try they did. The Traveler tried as hard as he could to stop the bloody, useless war, but he could not.

The Mare refused to let go though. They couldn't stop the war, she'd argued, but they could perhaps still save some, save even just one. She rushed out the door of The Ship as the bombs began to fall.

The Traveler found her. She was curled around a mewling child. Her body had blocked the shrapnel from harming the small thing. But at the cost of her own life.

He raged then. Oh, how he raged! The Traveler went positively mad with the fierce, hateful, unadulterated rage that should belong only to an angered god. He knocked the bombs from the sky, he tore apart the weapons, he threw the ships back to the sea. But it wasn't enough, for even the rage of a god cannot stop the foolishness of mortals in their tribal feuds.

Eventually he gave up. He took The Mare and The Child back to his ship. He couldn't stop the mortals of that world from destroying themselves, but perhaps he could save something.

See, this Traveler is very, very long lived. So he wanted to share part of his own life to save this mare. But to do so, he needed help, so he asked The Ship to take him back to before The Mare had died, so he could share part of his own soul with her to help her live.

But doing that sort of thing breaks many, many rules. The Ship couldn't return to her own trail easily. So The Traveler suggested another plan. The Ship agreed, and opened her soul to The Mare. The Traveler and The Ship both poured their hearts into her, breaking many, many rules in the process. Neither The Ship nor The Traveler knew exactly what they were doing. Some of The Ship's uniqueness was transferred into her. Likewise, some of the magic they poured into The Mare leaked into The Child she held as well.

The Mare awoke.

She opened her eyes.

She screamed.

----


"So you're telling me," Cloud Kicker said. "That the Commander has part of you and your ship's soul in her?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"And your ship then, isn't just some airship or something?"

"She's called a TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

"And the 'uniqueness' that was transferred? Are you saying that's what happened to Derpy?"

"Yes," The Doctor said. "At least, as far as I can tell."

"So what, exactly, is it?"

"Why would you care?"

Eyes going wide, Cloud Kicker took to a hover again. "What do you mean?" she yelled. "Of course I care, you ass!"

"Ah, so you do have another use for that word."

"Shut up and answer the question!"

Pondering a moment, the stallion finally replied. "Which is it?"

"Which is what?"

"'Shut up' or 'answer the question'? A pony can't readily do both."

Cloudy pulled her punch just inches from Time Turner's face. She didn't have patience for this. "Answer," she said, flatly.

"What do you think it is?"

"That's not an answer." She readied her punch again.

"Please, just humor me. What do 'they' say she can do? What do they say 'The Thing' actually is?"

Cloudy backed off a bit, then answered. "They say she can see the future. That her eyes aren't looking at us, now, but at things not yet happened."

The Doctor hung his head.

"So she can see the future?" Cloudy said, pressing into his personal space again.

"No," he said, closing his eyes in shame. "Well yes, but it's far, far worse than that. And it's all my fault."

"I... I don't understand."

"She doesn't see the future. She sees all futures!"

Cloud Kicker pondered this. It certainly explained some things. "But why is that so bad?"

"She can't stop seeing them!" The Doctor yelled.

"Okay, but..."

"You dumb, dumb horse! Don't you get it? She sees all possible futures, and she sees them all the time!"

"I don't get why that's so ba—"

"She can't close her eyes, because in other futures, her eyes are still open! She can't ignore something, because in at least one other life, she paid attention to it!" At this point tears started to form in the stallion's eyes. "She can barely even make friends because whenever she looks at some pony, they're already dead on some other timeline. And if they're not, she can see where and when they are going to die!"

The Doctor advanced on Cloud Kicker, and grabbed her face between his forehooves, staring her directly in the eye. "You ignorant, wonderful, innocent creature. She's seen every single pony she's ever cared about die more times than there are grains of sand on this tiny world. Not just past friends, not just current friends, but all the friends she has ever had and will ever have. She's seen them die a thousand times in a million horrible ways." He let go of Cloudy's head and sighed. "And it's all my fault, because I thought, just for one brief, shining moment, that I could save her."

Letting the thought sink in, Cloud Kicker slowly began to realize the full implication of what this stallion had just described. It was... horrible. She said the only thing she could.

"I'm... I'm sorry."

"So am I," he said. "But you should probably intercept that shark before it gets away."

Cloudy looked up, and quickly darted after the airborne shark.

----

The Lake, Center Of.
Again, Erstwhile.

"Pegasi, on me! Unicorns, start sieving for sharks! Earth ponies..."

The grounded, magicless members of The P.P.P. looked up toward Derpy for orders.

"Umm... build a dam or something?" She said it with a sly grin. All of them, Bon Bon included, had been here long enough to know the boss was anything but racist. Earth pony strength had saved the town numerous times, and the rest of A.S.S. knew it. If this particular disaster didn't lend itself to their talents, then that was just the closest they'd get a vacation, and that was fine by all.

On the order, the unicorns all began casting, using their auras to filter through the lake with magical nets, pulling all the newly-introduced sharks into a small area of water directly beneath the hovering Commander.

The pegasi circling above could see the above-water edges of the auras close together into a tight circle, and then they began their task. Flying rapidly, they began to form a waterspout, just like the typically annual water deliveries to Cloudsdale. The difference was that there was no upper destination for this funnel. No, instead, this particular column of water was destined for Ponyville itself.

As the wingpower was applied, and the waterspout grew, Derpy hovered precisely in the middle of it all. Her uncanny abilities allowing her to find the exact center and maintain position with little to no effort. In her hooves, she held the sigil that had started this whole mess, and as the clockwise—or whithershins from the point of view of the sigil itself—rotation grew, the glowing eye on the artifact began to shimmer.

It wasn't enough that water spin against its power though. The sigil was designed for ritual, and Sea Pony ritual meant other symbols. Specifically, many of those symbols were of power. Certain fish in the southern hemisphere had certain symbols of their own. One of those, a large billfish, had a pattern on its scale remarkably similar to a small perch that lived in Ponyville Lake. That was irrelevant now though, as they wanted to reverse the spell. The other powerful symbol the Sea Ponies revered was that of the shark. As fate would have it, one of those sharks had a counter-clockwise symbol upon its own scales, and that very shark had been drawn through the portal in numbers. These sharks were now being hefted into the air by the waterspout, and spun about Derpy—and the sigil—in a way designed to precisely counteract the original spell.

But there was one more motion component needed to counteract the ritual. As the ritual was cast, the world itself had spun. Ponyville Lake was, to aetherial reckoning, a fair ways off from the site of the original portal opening. More importantly, it had moved during the casting in a way that could be described as "twisting" about the planet's own center of mass. Derpy knew she'd have to twist things back for the counter-ritual to work and seal the portal.

"Okay," she yelled over the roar of the water around her. "Start pulling south!"

The pegasi forming the funnel team shifted the center of their circular flight, and the waterspout tilted dangerously toward the southern shoreline. They quickly corrected, but not before a lone shark went flying out of the top of the funnel.

Cloud Kicker was there to intercept, neatly bucking the shark back into the lake from mid-air.

----

Downtown Ponyville.
Four Hundred and Twelve Tense Seconds Later.

Roseluck, standing atop the bridge, looked to the north, and spied a curious formation. "Over there! It's a white tornado!" she said to whomever happened to be nearby. That whom happened to be Cranky Doodle Donkey.

"Look at it whirling around and spinning and everything," Roseluck continued, pointing fervently. "It's a white tornado!"

Cranky narrowed his eyes, squinting to get a better look. "White tornado my foot. That's a real tornado! Ooo, you ain't in New Colt City, baby."

As the pegasi-managed phenomena approached the town, other ponies began to take notice. It wasn't long before the fins of the enraptured sharks became apparent at the edges of the waterspout.

Roseluck herself had stood transfixed, and was quickly joined by her friend Lily. As the two of them began to resolve the aquatic creatures within the aerial happening, there was only one option.

"Sh..sh...SHARK!" Roseluck screamed.

"No..." Lily gasped, her breath short. "It's not just sharks... it's a... SHARKNADO!!!"

The two promptly fainted on the spot.

----

Downtown Ponyville.
Twenty Minutes Later.

"Well," Bon Bon said. "I guess this counts as a win?"

Commander Ditzy Doo nodded. "I just don't know what went wrong," she said in her cover voice.

The others laughed. They could all see the headline: "Derpy Accidently a Sharknado." Of course, this was probably a little too big to just leave to the "oops" cover.

"But look at all this damage." Bon Bon said. "That's going to cost a lot of bits to fix up."

"Yes," Derpy replied. "One hundred and eight thousand, four hundred and ninety two bits."

Nearby, Cloud Kicker leaned in close and whispered to Time Turner, "How does she do that? Is your ship some sort of math machine?"

The Doctor thought about introducing the idea of computers, but decided against it. "Yes, but no... I suspect she just looked ahead to the report you'll give her next week, totaling the damages."

"Oh." Cloud Kicker wasn't sure if that was more or less impressive than what she'd suspected. It was kind scary—but cool—either way.

"So what do we do now?" Clean Slate asked. "I know how we'd handled it, but what's damage control look like here in the hinterlands?"

Grinning, Derpy looked at him. She actually looked at him. Both eyes. "You think you're here by coincidence?"

Clean Slate, who'd never worn more than the occasional tie in his entire life, suddenly felt more naked than he'd ever been. This mare seemed to stare right through him. Not just to his skin, or even his bones, but to his very soul and beyond.

"What ever you need, ma'am!" he quickly replied. Anything to get that burning gaze off himself. At the same time, he wondered exactly what it was she was seeing though.

Chuckling, Derpy trotted toward him. "Don't worry, it's not that bad, as those sorts of things go."

The rest of the discussion was all business. They'd spend a couple of days repairing the town as best they could. Most of the town would be in shock and follow orders, so they had plenty of help. At the end though, they couldn't leave the townsponies with that kind of trauma, or they might try to move to someplace "safer," abandoning the new princess as she came into her own. Twilight needed to have her friends, and her town around her. After all, that was the primary mission of the alicorn snit squad.

Officially, The Ministry of Alicorn Solecism Suppression was meant to protect the Princesses (and other royalty) from their own mistakes (covering up their "snits".) That had evolved into a broader mission of keeping them happy. That meant keeping the worst of the world suppressed from their view. Because, quite frankly, the ponies involved loved their princesses, and loved what they were doing for Equestria. Optimistic royalty made for an optimistic Equestria. Letting the royals see too much of the dark, dangerous side of life risked them becoming embittered. As long as they saw a world filled with rainbows, the rest of the populace tended to see that too. And as far as self-fulfilling prophecies went, a happy land of alicorns and rainbows seemed to balance out pretty well. And it took a relatively few number of ponies to manage that, even if their individual sacrifice was often quite high.

So, Clean Slate did his job. He edited the memories of the townsponies involved, removing all the fear and terror the shark-filled tornado had caused. When they thought about the event again, they'd remember simply some relatively normal—but vague—weather phenomena that had blown over a few roofs and trees in town. Ponyville was full of strong ponies, and a little harsh weather wasn't going to stop them!

The Cutie Mark Crusaders were a different matter, however.

"I can't do it," Clean Slate said.

"I'm not asking you," Commander Ditzy Doo said. "I am giving you a direct order. Wipe their memories of this event!"

The two ponies were, thankfully, beyond earshot of the aforementioned fillies, who were huddled near their clubhouse as the sun went down, that being the safest place for them to "wake" and start piecing together any fractured memories.

"No, you don't understand, I'm not refusing you," Clean Slate said. "I'm saying I can not modify their memories. Something is blocking me."

In the distance, Cloud Kicker tiptoed up behind Time Turner, who was holding a strange, glowing stick in his mouth. It was making some sort of high, tinny sound.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Umm... Nothing?" he said, quickly vanishing the device.

She said nothing.

"Okay, right, so... You know about the memory wipes?"

Cloud Kicker nodded. "It's for the best. No pony should have to live their lives afraid of things they've seen in the dark. That's why we're here."

The Doctor half-frowned. "Yes, sometimes. Maybe. In circumstances. But those are children! Foals!"

Cloudy thought. "Shouldn't we protect them even more?"

"No!" The Doctor said in an emphatic whisper. "They're foals!"

"I don't get it," Cloudy admitted.

"You... you... grown ups" he said the word with clear distaste. "You think because you've grown past most of your fears that fear is somehow bad. That, because you no longer imagine monsters in the dark, that the monsters are somehow no longer there."

"Yes..." Cloud Kicker hesitated. "That's called growing up. Foals are afraid of the dark, but you grow out of it."

"Wrong wrong wrong!" The Doctor said. "That's just your grown up mind saying you somehow 'solved' a problem you had as a foal. But, and just stick with me here for a moment, what if it was never actually a problem in the first place?"

"What do you mean?"

The Doctor sighed. "Okay, let's start with this: Why were you afraid of the dark?"

"Umm... because I imagined things that weren't actually there."

"Yes! What was that word again? Imagined! You imagined things in the dark!"

"Right, but they weren't real. So I grew up and learned to stop doing foalish things like that."

"You bloody, foolish ponies! Of course you think you did! But..." He jumped back and grabbed a rock. "But why do you think foals imagine those things in the first place? Do you train them to do that?" He threw the rock into the woods.

Cloud Kicker turned and looked toward the dark forest where the rock had landed, trying to see what he'd thrown it at.

"No!" The Doctor cried. "You still do it. Just now! You saw me throw the rock, why would you care where it lands, save that you imagine there might be something I was throwing it at, over there, in the dark!"

Things began to click together in Cloudy's mind.

"Yes..." The Doctor smiled. "Now you're getting it, aren't you? To be alive, to be sapient, sentient, isn't just to be afraid of the dark."

"No," Cloud Kicker admitted. "I guess it's not."

"Tell me true, what did you feel when I threw that rock into the darkness?"

"I..."

"Don't think just tell me!"

"I felt my heart beat faster. I felt a surge of energy. I was ready for a fight. I was ready for... for anything!"

The brown stallion, who some knew as Time Turner, and some knew as The Doctor, smiled a warm, maniacal smile, like a mad god in love with his creation. "Now you get it!" he said. "To be sentient isn't just to be afraid of the dark, but to be thrilled by it!"

Cloud Kicker merely nodded.

"Those fillies, they still are. Sure, the grown ups"—he spat on the ground—"in this town are mostly beyond help. Wipe their memories, keep them safe and warm. But those little girls need this. They toss a rock into a lake, and see a tornado full of sharks run through their town. That's horrible, but it's also amazing! In their eyes, they see a world where nothing, absolutely nothing is impossible, no matter how crazy, wild, or wonderful it is. Their imaginations will be over the moon—and I suspect that may be more than literal in at least one case—before too much longer. I would not let anyone deny that to them."

Cloud Kicker smiled. "That's a beautiful sentiment. But do you really think it works in the long run?"

"Tell me, Ms. Cloud Kicker, what made you join the Ministry?"

"Well, I scored very—"

"No. I mean, what's that earliest memory where you knew, just absolutely knew you were going to do something amazing with your life."

Cloud Kicker thought back, back to the things she'd shared rarely, and with few others. That thing she'd been teased for, mocked for, laughed at for.

"When I was little, I was living in this very town. I hear noises outside my door one night, and..." she hesitated.

"You thought it was some big, scary monster?"

"It was some big, scary monster! It was a fucking timberwolf at the back door!"

"And?" The Doctor prompted.

"And..." Cloudy had only told three ponies this story in her life. Her parents, and the psychiatrist they'd taken her to. None of them had believed her.

"I saw Granny Smith walk up out of the woods, and whistle at the beast. It turned, trotted to her, and she patted it on the head before they both walked into the woods."

"You saw something impossible. But grown ups didn't believe you."

Cloudy nodded.

"And you determined then and there that you'd show them all."

She nodded again.

"And how do you think those little girls," he pointed toward the Cutie Mark Crusaders in the distance, past an arguing Clean Slate and Derpy Hooves. "How do you think they'll react to these recent events?"

Cloud Kicker grinned a lopsided grin, a tear forming in her eye. "Magnificently!" she said, and ran off toward the argument.

-----

CMC Clubhouse.
A moment later.

"Okay, girls," Derpy said. "But you have to promise me you'll tell no pony about any of this."

"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!" The three fillies made the motions to go with the swear.

"Do you really think they'll keep that promise?" Derpy asked Cloud Kicker, as the two walked back toward Ponyville a few moments later.

"No," she said, and quickly added, "But I think the world will be a better place for it."

Commander Ditzy Doo's eyes went wild, trying to track the implications. Her intro-futuro-spection was interrupted as Agent Cloud Kicker wrapped her in a big hug.

As the two separated a moment later, Derpy asked. "What was that for?"

"Because..." she felt herself having to resist the habit of protocol and use a familiar name, "Because Derpy, you look like you need a friend."

"I... I have friends." Derpy said, still surprised.

"Yes, more than even you could know. And you always, always will. Don't push us aside just because you know the end to the story and we don't."

"What..." Derpy found herself adrift, eyes running wild, unable to track any coherent worldlines. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I know. I know you see it all. I know it hurts. But I'm here, now... we're all here, now and when we're not, some others will be. You will always have friends! Don't let the end of those friendships get in the way of their beginnings." She squeezed Derpy tighter in the hug, and found her should soon felt wet with tears.

"Thank you."

-----

Ponyville Castle.
The Next Morning.

"Spike!" Princess Twilight Sparkle called out. "Spike, where are you?"

She thought a moment, and remembered the young dragon was out of town, traveling with Rarity to Manehatten. She'd have to do this the old fashioned way.

A short while later, the mailmare finally arrived.

"Oh, Derpy, thank Celestia you're here!"

"Yes, Princess?" Derpy Hooves, mailmare non-descript, said. "How can I help you?"

"I know it's not on your normal route, but can you please rush this urgent letter to Canterlot?"

"Sure thing, your highness. What's the problem?"

"Well, Fluttershy swears she saw a shark swimming slowly south in the stream, and I just have this strange feeling that it's a sign of something big!"

"No problem," Derpy said. "I'll take care of it before you even know what happened!"