Derpy trotted happily along the road back to her house, whistling a muffled merry tune as she went along. She was a pegasus, so sure she could have been flying back; however, she wanted to keep her legs in as good condition as she could, so at least once a week she made the two mile or so trek back to her house on hoof.
Today, though, was different, and the reason for the difference had not a small amount to do with the reason why her merry tune came out less clear than normal. She was carrying a brown paper sack in her mouth, folded up at the top so as not to allow the precious contents inside to fall out on the ground.
What did the sack have in it? A muffin, of course. But it was not any ordinary muffin. It had been given to her as a late birthday present by the new resident in town, Time Turner. He had stopped by the post office to get a letter out to a friend, and had begun talking to Derpy while there. When she mentioned that it was a bit past her birthday, and having heard that she was a big fan of muffins earlier in the conversation, Time Turner had gone out and gotten her a rather large chocolate chip muffin.
Derpy had naturally been overjoyed.
She’d been tempted all day to start munching on the muffin early, but she kept telling herself to wait until she got home. She knew that chocolate chip muffins were Dinky’s favorite, and she didn’t want to disappoint her filly by eating it all without thinking of her. So she decided that she would just wait until she got home to start eating it at all.
She was only a half mile or so away from her house when the bag started to unnaturally vibrate a bit. She confusedly stopped and dropped the bag to the ground. She stared at it for a moment as it wobbled back and forth on its base. It only did so for a moment, then stopped and lay still. Derpy stared at it for a moment more, wondering if it was going to do anything else. When it didn’t move at all, she shrugged and picked it back up, continuing her trot home.
Wonder if I was just imagining things? she thought to herself. I have been working a lot lately. Maybe I should just get Sparkler to take over for me tomorrow so I can have the day off. It’s been a while since I had a day off…
A few minutes later, Derpy reached her house. She stopped at the front door before entering, and set the bag down on the front step. She looked at it expectantly, as though she was daring it to move as it had before. Nothing happened this time, though; it behaved exactly as an inanimate paper bag should- which is, to say, it did not behave in any matter at all except to have gravity exact its crushing will upon it.
She picked it up again and used her wing to open the door to the house. Immediately, she was beset upon by a giggling Dinky, who took the opportunity to wrap her up in a giddy hug.
“Hi, Mommy!” Dinky said with as much enthusiasm as she could put into it. “How was your day?” Before she could even give Derpy a chance to respond, she spotted the bag in her mouth. “Oooh, what’s in there?”
Derpy walked to the kitchen table, Dinky still clinging onto her right foreleg. She set the bag down on the table, freeing her mouth up to respond. “I got it at work today from a friend. It’s a muffin.”
Dinky dropped to the floor. “Oh wow, cool! What kind?”
Derpy smiled. “Your favorite, of course.” The look on Dinky’s face as her visage brightened only reinforced Derpy’s notion that her choice to wait until she got home was the right one. As Dinky hopped around the kitchen excitedly, Derpy went to the cabinet and took out two plates, one for her and one for Dinky. She set them both down on the table, then went to get a knife to cut the muffin in half to share.
Just then, she heard a voice coming from the back of the room: “Hey, you. Yeah, you. Blondie. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Derpy whirled around, startled. She didn’t recognize the voice at all, and that was one of the things that she was best at, was remembering faces and voices. She looked at Dinky, thinking that maybe she had made that voice, but she was looking just as confused as Derpy was.
“Did you not hear me? Get me out of this damn bag! I can’t breathe in here!”
“But I just took a really long nap…” Dinky pointed out, “and I can hear it just as well as you can.” She had a point. Derpy opened the bag tentatively, and removed the muffin, placing it on the bigger plate.
“Oh thank God, you’re not deaf! I was starting to think I’d be in that damn bag forever!” Sure enough, the voice was definitely emanating from the muffin, and Derpy was stunned into silence. She’d eaten her fair share of muffins before, but none had ever actually talked to her before… Well, there was that one she’d eaten after she’d experimented with dropping acid when she and Vinyl Scratch were still dating, but that hardly counted. And even then, it hadn’t cursed at her like this muffin was doing.
“Did you have a bad day?” Dinky asked, trotting over to where Derpy was standing. “‘Cause you’re using a lot of bad words…”
“Oh yeah…” the voice came again. “Worst day ever. One minute, I was haunting my best buddy Vegeta, who by the way is the biggest bag of dicks in the universe. If you ever get around him, run away as fast as you can. Anyways, one minute I’m haunting him and annoying the shit out of him like I always do, and then next thing I know, bam! I’m stuck in this fucking muffin, no way out, and I’m getting shaken around like I’m at a Zarbon Boys concert. Fuckin’ sucked, I tell ya. By the way, thanks for putting me down. I felt like I was about to throw up. Then again, can a ghost even get motion sickness? Hell if I know.”
“Ghost?” Derpy asked. “Was that what you just said? You’re a ghost?” She couldn’t believe her ears. She’d never even thought that ghosts were real, although she’d read a lot of books about them in her spare time. She knew what a lot of ponies said about them, but never had she actually had a real-life experience with one of them… Until now, she guessed.
“Yep, I’m a ghost. The name’s Nappa. Ever heard of me? Probably not. Figures. Anyways, you remember Vegeta? The bag of dicks I just mentioned? Yeah, he killed me. Right after I’d gotten embarrassed by getting my ass beat by this other bag of dicks named Kakarot. He just blasts off and kills me dead. Guess he didn’t remember the Bug Planet after all…”
Derpy was now incredibly confused, as nothing this “ghost” was saying was making any sense at all. On top of that, she was now convinced that this muffin was indeed haunted, which made her more than a little bit sad because to her, this meant that she couldn’t eat it, and any muffin that she couldn’t eat (or share with Dinky) was a muffin that didn’t need to exist at all.
“So how can we get you out?” Derpy asked.
“I don’t know,” came the disembodied muffin-voice again. “I already told you, I don’t even know how I got in here. If I knew that, then maybe I could tell you how to get me out. Until then, though, I guess I’ll just stay in here.”
“Can I at least eat the muffin?” Derpy asked tentatively. “I brought it home for me and my Dinky to eat…”
“What, and kill me again? I don’t think so. I’m not letting you eat this muffin. Period.” Derpy’s hopes deflated faster than a popped balloon; there was no way that she saw that could allow her to get the ghost out of the muffin. She picked the plate up and stuck it in the fridge.
“Holy shit, it’s cold in here!” the voice said. “Why the hell are you doing this to me? What did I ever do to you?”
Derpy looked at the muffin coldly, which was another first for her. “You’re preventing me and Dinky from eating my muffin. That’s reason enough.” She shut the door amidst Nappa’s fervent protests.
She sighed and walked into the living room. All she wanted was to bring a nice treat home for her and Dinky to share, but all that had come out of it so far was her first-ever ghost sighting and a lot of foul language. She picked up one of her ghost books that she’d checked out from the library and, flopping down onto the couch exasperatedly, she began to leaf through it as Dinky hopped up onto the couch and nuzzled up to her side playfully. Derpy smiled and ruffled Dinky’s mane as she skimmed through the book’s contents.
“Hmm… There’s got to be something in here about how to get a ghost out of a muffin…” She went back to the index at the back of the book. “Nothing. Of course not…” She began to skim again, and about halfway through the book, something caught her attention.
“So ghosts can be driven out of objects through music? That… doesn’t seem right. How on earth would that work at all?” Dinky shrugged, and Derpy smiled. “Yeah, I don’t get it either.” Suddenly, an idea came to her. “Hold on a second… Wasn’t Octavia supposed to be stopping in Ponyville tonight on one of her tours?”
“Yep!” Dinky said proudly. Dinky was possibly Octavia Melody’s biggest fan, and Derpy was very proud of her filly following in her hoofsteps of having a love for classical music. “She’s supposed to do a meet-and-greet at the Cakes’ bakery at 5:30 before her concert, too!”
Derpy smiled. This was her shot, she felt; maybe now, she could get the ghost out of the muffin so she and Dinky could finally enjoy their treat. Looking at the clock, she saw that there was only fifteen minutes to get to the Cakes’ shop, so she suited her and Dinky up. A moment later, they were in flight towards the center of Ponyville.
~ ~ ~
Octavia Melody sat at the center of the Cakes’ bakery. A special table had been set up for her so she could put all the copies of the portrait she had brought with her to autograph and pass out for her friends. As Derpy arrived and walked in, there was a surprisingly long line of ponies waiting to see her. Derpy could just barely see Octavia inside, and Pinkie Pie beside her helping her out.
I can’t wait for this whole line to die down just so I can get in there and talk to her… she thought. I’ve gotta get in there and see her now! She started towards the front of the line, ignoring the cries of protest coming from the other ponies. Even with the cutting in line, it took her a minute to make her way up to the front. Pinkie, naturally, spotted her first.
“Ooh, hey, Derpy!” Pinkie said with her usual contagious grin. “Whatcha doin’ all the way up here?”
Derpy motioned towards Octavia. “I need to talk to her about something. It’s desperately important.”
“Um, excuse me, miss…” Octavia put in, “but I was not aware that ponies could cut in line for autographs, so I am going to have to ask you to-”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Derpy replied. “I’m not here to get an autograph anyways.” Before the look of shock could fully settle over Octavia’s face, Derpy continued: “I need your help getting a ghost out of a muffin.”
The entire room went silent, and stayed that way for a few moments, before everypony burst into laughter. Apparently, they’d all heard Derpy’s dramatic proclamation. Derpy stood her ground, though. “Why are you all laughing? It’s true! I’ve got a haunted muffin in my refrigerator!”
Octavia got up from her seat and led Derpy- and by extension, Dinky, as the filly was perched atop Derpy’s head like a hat- over to an adjacent table. They sat down.
“Alright,” Octavia started, “let me get this straight. There is a muffin sitting in your refrigerator, that you claim is haunted by a ghost-”
“Yep!” Dinky said. “And he even says a lot of really bad words! He says his name is Nappa.”
Octavia’s eyes narrowed. “That is unlike any other name I have ever heard. But truthfully, I am only confused about one thing: why on earth are you coming to me with this? Should not somepony like Time Turner be the first one you go to?”
“No,” Derpy replied, “because he doesn’t have very good taste in music. You do. Plus, I was reading this book, and it said that somepony can drive a ghost out of a haunted object by playing music. So naturally, I thought of you.”
“But, Miss Hooves… Do you not have a radio at your house? Could you not have just used that?” Derpy was about to question how she knew that, when she remembered that Octavia had been to their house once before, having been invited to dinner after one of her previous concerts.
“I do, but it broke a few months ago. Dinky was being too rambunctious and she knocked it down off the fireplace ledge. It hasn’t worked right since.” Something dawned on her. “You know my house better than just about anypony else! See, I knew you were perfect. Come on!” She took Octavia by the hoof and began dragging her out towards the door.
Everypony else renewed their objections to her actions, but Derpy kept on dragging her until they were out the door. Once that had taken place, they all looked to Pinkie, who naturally thought quickly on how to remedy the situation.
“Um… so… Half-off everything you buy for the rest of the day?”
~ ~ ~
It took a good minute, but Derpy finally managed to get Octavia back to the house. She’d protested the entire way there, but finally when they made it, she stopped. They walked into the house together.
“I just want to say, Miss Hooves, that this is an affront to the entire Ponyville community. Coming up with these outlandish stories and then dragging an important pony like me away from an autograph signing… Totally unprofessional. Think about all the-” She stopped mid-sentence, as a floating muffin greeted her at eye-level.
“Hey, Derpy. I can fly…”
“I see that…” Derpy said confusedly. “But how did you get out of the refrigerator?”
“I used my ghost powers to open the door. It was too damn cold in there, I told you.” Octavia flushed slightly at the use of profanity. “Vegeta wasn’t any damn help, either. I tried calling him on my scouter but apparently you can’t use those for that purpose. Ah, fuck him.” A pause, then: “He took the Dragon Ball…”
Derpy looked at Octavia, expecting her to do something. Octavia looked back at her. “What am I supposed to do? I have never even encountered a ghost before, much less been asked to exorcise one from a muffin…!”
“Whoa wait, so that’s why she’s here?” Nappa asked. “So she can get me out of this muffin. Oh, fuck that! I don’t want to leave the muffin! It’s a good muffin!” The haunted muffin started to float away, but was suddenly engulfed in a pink aura, causing it to remain still. Derpy and Octavia looked up, and were surprised at who had suddenly joined them.
“Vinyl?”
Vinyl smiled. “‘Sup, Derps? Hey, Octy. Figured I’d check on y’all after Derpy bull-rushed you out of the bakery. So are you going to exorcise this foul-mouthed asshole or what?”
“Damn, I like your style,” Nappa commented. Octavia sighed and produced a cello out of nowhere, starting to play it beautifully as she always did. “Where the hell did that come from?”
Suddenly, the muffin began to contort drastically, and a low moan could be heard on the wind. Just then, the muffin exploded into a million tiny pieces, and the true form of Ghost Nappa was revealed.
“Fine, fuck you then! I didn’t like that damn muffin anyways!” Nappa sped out of the room, yelling something about Vegeta and being weak like papier-mache… “or Raditz!”
Derpy sighed. Her ordeal was over. She looked at Octavia. “Sorry for dragging you out here. I didn’t know who else to turn to, though.” Octavia simply nodded in a professional way, then walked out the door, accompanied by Vinyl Scratch. Derpy walked over to the couch and sat down again.
“I didn’t even get my muffin back…”
~ ~ ~
Trixie was on her way to the bar for her nightly show in Manehattan. Ever since Twilight had defeated her in Ponyville, work was incredibly hard to come by. She’d found some work as a stage magician, though, and the pay was decent, so she couldn’t really complain. She walked into the club, and was immediately met by her best friend Milky Way, who tossed her a sandwich. She smiled and walked back to the back of the room, setting the sandwich down on her dressing room table. Just then, she heard a voice from seemingly nowhere.
“Oh shit, not again…”
