Derpy, the Doctor, and the Book
Doctor Whooves was well known throughout Ponyville as a most unusual character. He was often seen, when he was seen at all, ferrying strange and unusual objects in and out of the laboratory that he had set up in his home. Of all the ponies of Ponyville, he was seen as somewhat of a loner, spending hours upon hours cooped up in his home where strange lights and noises could be heard at all hours of the day and even at night. This was not to say that Doc, as those few ponies who knew him well sometimes called him, was a recluse or was actively unsociable, but that he was perfectly willing to spend several days locked in his home working on Celestia-knows-what.
However, there was one pony who was often seen by his side, galloping and prancing around with him as he ran around town with his strange devices. Derpy Hooves was this pony’s name, and to those who lived in Ponyville, she was most definitely known as Doctor Whooves’ best friend and assistant. Derpy was not often the most coordinated of ponies, which often confused those that saw Doc letting her carry his very complex looking gizmos and gadgets around town. And as Doc had few close friends, it confused them more as to why he chose her of all ponies to be involved in his strange projects and curious adventures. Perhaps it was due to the fact that they had similar last names, or maybe it was that Derpy was the only pony willing to endure Doc’s many strange habits and dangerous inventions. Whatever the reason was, everypony in Ponyville was happy that Doctor Whooves had at least one close friend to share in his weirdness, mostly so he didn’t try to wrangle them into dealing with his crazy contraptions.
Recently, though, many of Doc's friends and neighbors had noticed him acting just a tad more odd than usual. In recent weeks, he had taken to locking himself in his lab for longer periods and more often. The lights and noises that usually emanated from his home also changed from their more mechanical origins to seemingly more magical ones. And while Derpy was now very often seen entering and leaving Doctor Whooves’ home at the most unusual hours, the good doctor himself had been seen less and less.
“How’s Doc doing?” they asked Derpy as she made her way towards his house one fine morning.
Derpy smiled her usual comforting smile, “Oh you know, he’s very busy with his…with his…well, I don’t really get it all, but it’s some new magic thingy he found and he’s really into it.”
“Magic?” the ponies asked. “He should get Princess Twilight, she could help him.”
Derpy just shook her head. “Doc said he wants to figure this out himself. He’s really smart and when he gets really into something, nothing and nopony can change his mind.”
The neighbors were hardly satisfied with this answer, and attempted to repeatedly pester Derpy as to the nature of this new magical “thingy” but Derpy remained frustratingly tight-lipped. After some time and questioning, the neighbor ponies gave up, and Derpy was allowed to continue on her way to Doctor Whooves’ house. Derpy quickly flapped her wings as she sped towards her friend’s house, hoping to avoid any more nosey neighbors. She had a schedule to keep, and her best friend was expecting her to arrive at a very specific time, as he didn’t approve of tardiness.
Doctor Whooves’ house was quite a typical Ponyville house, save for a few modifications he had made over the years. He had added several rooms to the first floor, expanding the available space for his copious contraptions and machines. It was not the most well-kept house on the block, as equipment had been either strewn around carelessly or bunched up into piles in various corners as more space was needed. The walls of several rooms had been removed to create a large central area where the pony scientist’s more pressing experiments could be laid out in his desired order. This gave him ample room to move about as new material was either introduced to the space or tossed into one of the large piles of outdated inventions that littered the walls and side-rooms.
“Doc!” Derpy called, “Doc! I’m here!” Derpy looked around the cluttered lab as she entered by the main door. She could tell from the state of the place that her friend had been up the entire night, as much of the clutter had been moved around, with several piles of stuff having been knocked over.
Despite the mess, Derpy was as awestruck by the place as she ever was. No matter how many times she came and went, a sense of wonder overtook her as she entered the laboratory. Beneath the mess, she could see wonders that other ponies around town could hardly dream of. Brilliant ideas and clever inventions littered the floor and walls of the place, things that Derpy herself was positive she could never think up in a million years. From potentially world-changing technologies to the most mundane of plasma balls, which Derpy particularly enjoyed. There were time machines, and shaving creams! Self-charging motors, and sprays that removed odors! There were clocks that could talk, and tables that could walk! There was even a mechanical pony which Doc had built out of spare parts that had been hung from the ceiling with wires. Derpy always found something to fall in love with whenever her friend impressed her with sneak peeks at all his new thoughts and ideas.
“Derpy!?” The brilliant Earth Pony called out from somewhere in the room. “Derpy, is that you!? I think I’ve hit a breakthrough!”
Derpy struggled to see through the dimly lit house as she slowly hovered around in search of Doc. Her muddled eyes, having long deteriorated in their ability to see straight, gave her enough trouble without the poor lighting of the house making it worse for her. In fact, the only real light that Derpy could make out was the soft glow of luminescent buttons and dials of the few machines that were active. The light-switch had some time ago been obscured by one of the discarded piles of tech, and what few windows that the home had were covered up.
“I’ll get the windows, Doc!” Derpy called out, doing her best to not bump into too many things as she made her way through the house.
Despite her best efforts though, several piles of what Derpy worried could be terribly important inventions were bumped into and knocked down. The darkness in the room made it difficult to determine what the Pegasus mare had just disturbed before she made her way to where she knew an unobscured window was. Despite this worry, Derpy continued onward, and with a flick of her hoof, the drapes of the first window were pulled back, letting the warm morning light float into the dim room. With this new light, Derpy now more easily made her way to the several other windows of the house, uncovering them all and filling the large room with light.
“There you are!” Derpy excitedly called, as she was now able to make her friend out from behind a stack of spaceship schematics and broken screwdrivers. Derpy donned her happy grin as she made her way over to her friend, who was hunched over a table with a large object sitting on it. Derpy gazed down at Doc, who was looking quite disheveled, and happily hugged him once she had approached. “Didn’t even knock you over this time,” Derpy squeed.
“Never mind that, Derpy.” Doc said, almost muttering. “Come see what I found.”
Derpy peered over his shoulder to see the object on the table. The focus of Doc’s current fascination was a book, a rather large and beautiful book that sat squarely in the center of the table. The cover was engraved with wonderful looking images of ponies, griffons, dragons, and various other creatures. Derpy was certain that she had seen it somewhere before, but could not quite put her hoof on exactly where. The mare stared down deeply at the book, almost as if her gaze had been transfixed by some powerful magic. As the Pegasus puzzled over the book, Doc stretched out his hoof and deftly flipped it open. He looked down with his friend as the pages continued to swiftly turn on their own, before settling down about halfway through the book’s length. Derpy stood completely stupefied as she saw what was contained within the book.
As Derpy and Doc peered into the old pages of the book, the two friends beheld, written in ink, the life stories–down to the smallest detail–of everypony that they had ever known or heard of. But beyond this, the magic of the book could be felt merely by standing in its presence for long enough. When the bindings were opened, the pages glowed, and if Derpy and Doc listened carefully, they could swear it even seemed to hum a bit. The words written on the pages seemed to move and flow with each passing second. The two ponies observed as new words were written in the book as the lives of its characters unfolded in real life.
“What is it, Doc?” Derpy asked, sticking her muzzle over Doctor Whooves’ shoulder.
“See for yourself,” Doc chuckled, sporting a small grin on his face.
As Derpy peered down into the glowing pages, what she saw made her jaw drop. There she was, Derpy Hooves, staring at the retelling of her own life. The Pegasus mare was gobsmacked as words and images of her own life flowed past her uneven eyes. Doc flipped several pages ahead to reveal an image of Derpy staring at an image of Derpy staring at the book.
“I don’t like that,” Derpy whined, her smile disappearing.
“Now look at this,” Doc said, flipping several more pages ahead.
Derpy now reluctantly stared as she saw a page depicting Doctor Whooves himself now staring down at the book with Derpy hanging over his shoulder.
“This is creepy,” Derpy said.
Doc quickly stood up from his chair, nearly dropping Derpy to the ground with his haste. “Now look around and tell me what you see,” he said, more excitedly than before.
Derpy once again did as she was told and looked around, seeing nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Everything was more or less where it had been except for the few piles that she had previously noticed had been moved around.
“I don’t really see anything, just the normal piles of stuff you always have. If I had to guess though, it looks like you moved some stuff around,” Derpy said, puzzled.
Doc immediately shot up. “Aha!” he declared. “But in fact, just about everything has changed!” Doctor Whooves wheeled around towards the center of the room and waved his hoof around, “Nothing that you see here was here before a few hours ago.”
Now Derpy was really confused. The house looked the way it always did. Most everything was where it should be, and what few things that weren’t were still things that she knew that her friend owned. Derpy sat herself down in Doc’s chair, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
The Earth Pony scientist turned back around to face his assistant. “Don’t you see? A few hours ago, this house was just a normal, cluttered house, but now… now it’s entirely different.”
“I don’t get it,” Derpy said, ever more confused.
“This extra space, about half of these piles and piles of inventions, didn’t exist until I wrote them into the book,” Doc blurted out, almost unable to speak. “And it's interesting that you actually noticed any changes at all. Perhaps your subconscious was telling you that something wasn’t quite right, or maybe it was because of your familiarity with me, the pony who actually made the changes. It’s very hard to come to conclusions so quickly with magic involved.”
Deep down Derpy had a bad feeling, but seeing her friend so excited about this discovery overrode any reservations she had. Her smile, though not quite as large as earlier, returned, and her wings fluttered happily as her mood lightened. She gave Doc another big hug.
“Wow, that’s awesome Doc,” Derpy said sweetly. “This thing must have some really crazy magic if it can do stuff like that.”
Doc nodded his head in agreement with Derpy. “Oh yes, but don’t you go on thinking that I don’t understand how powerful magic like this can be misused. The ability to simply write over somepony’s own story could be disastrous in the wrong hooves. And that’s why we need to keep this book a secret until I can learn more about it. Then, once I’ve mastered its secrets, we can give it to Princess Twilight, or one of her friends, for safekeeping.”
Derpy looked back down towards the book. “Do you really think it can change anything?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, but I’m not willing to try and make any kind of crazy changes that could alter Equestria until I know more. After all, while it’s not quite the same, this power seems to share very similar attributes to time travel; and there are few ponies that know more about that than myself. Perhaps I could start with small changes, such as what I had for breakfast, or maybe what color tie I wore yesterday. The possibilities could potentially be endless!” Doc answered.
Derpy wasn’t entirely sure what to think about all of this, but Doc seemed to know what he was talking about, so the Pegasus mare quickly decided to let him do what he wanted with it. “If you say so, Doc, but it still looks like you’ve been up all night. Maybe you should sleep a little bit.”
Doc let out a long, slow yawn. “I can’t possibly think about sleeping yet, my dear Derpy. There’s still so much to learn about this book. Who knows what other mysteries and powers it could hold?”
Derpy shook her head quite adamantly to this, using both her hooves and wings to push her exhausted friend towards his room on the second floor of the home. “You need your rest, Doc. You always figure this kind of stuff out faster after you’ve had some rest, and you’ve been up for too long anyway.”
Doc always complained when Derpy tried to get him to take breaks, but letting him remain awake for multiple days at a time rarely ended well. Derpy would often find that he was perfectly willing to work until mental and physical exhaustion made him drop to the floor. The Earth Pony would take several days to fully recover, and would then get depressed for missing out on several more potentially productive days. It was a cycle that Derpy had learned to detect from her friend, and she knew how to shake him out of it when the need arose.
The exhaustion that Doc was feeling kept any resistance he put up to a minimum, and by the time Derpy had coaxed him into his bed, her tired friend had nearly fallen asleep already. Derpy always felt a sense of pride when she was able to convince Doc of anything. He was very stubborn about his scientific and magical research, always trying to blend them together and to try and make something new and exciting. He was stubborn, but he was also passionate about his work, and Derpy loved that. The scientist’s passion for any particular project would often rub off on Derpy, and helping him in his experiments had become nearly second nature for the Pegasus.
As Derpy made her way back downstairs to the lab, the morning sun illuminated the large room through the open windows. One beam of light in particular seemed to shine straight down onto the book that Doctor Whooves had been studying all night. Derpy’s eye caught the beam of light, and something within her seemed to draw her entire being towards the book itself. She took a few timid steps towards it, almost tripping over several discarded items, as her eyes momentarily wandered about the room. Derpy, wanting to be quiet so as not to disturb her sleeping friend, angrily muttered to herself about her clumsiness as she pondered whether or not she should approach the book without Doc present.
Despite her inward doubt, a curious desire seemed to compel Derpy towards this mysterious artifact. The quick glimpse she had earlier now piqued some deep desire to attempt to understand more about it, something so curious that Doc had been driving himself to exhaustion in trying to figure it out. Derpy approached the book carefully, being extra mindful not to bump into or knock over any of the things that Doc often left strewn across the floor around his workspaces.
“Maybe if I just look at it a little bit, I can find something to help Doc with,” Derpy whispered to herself as she approached the book.
It was quite large in size, with some pages neatly fitting within the binding while some others hung out a bit more loosely. As Derpy peered at the book, she wondered if she could really find anything out about it that would help Doc out. Derpy didn’t consider herself to be particularly smart, and if Doc himself hadn’t been able to fully understand this thing then what chance did she have? But curiosity can be a powerful thing, and slowly but surely Derpy reached out her hoof towards the book. The first thing she did was simply open the front cover, revealing the words:
The Book of All Stories
“‘Book of All Stories’?” Derpy asked herself. “I guess that makes sense with what Doc and I saw earlier.” Derpy began to flip through the various pages, seeing words and images of things that she could hardly understand. “Some of these ponies look kinda weird,” she muttered, staring at some images of ponies with strange and unusual proportions.
Derpy continued to flip through the various pages, taking down mental notes of some of the stranger things she saw. There were scenes of ponies that looked familiar, and had familiar names, but they said and did things that she knew that the real ones hadn’t. Derpy also noticed that an unknown number of pages seemed to be missing from the book. Many of the stories remained unfinished, and there were obvious signs of torn and rewritten pages.
“This thing is so weird,” Derpy said. “Doc showed me my story, I wonder where it is.”
The gray mare continued to flip through the pages until, after several minutes, she found the object of her search. The words seemed to flow directly into her brain without her having to so much as attempt to follow them line by line. This suited Derpy well, as she often had difficulty reading since her eyes always wandered away from the page. She read and saw many things that she had long ago forgotten. Things from her childhood, such as her once-excellent flying, before her eyes began to wander and her performance began to slowly deteriorate.
Derpy pouted a bit to herself. “I used to be faster than Rainbow Dash. But these gosh-darned eyes of mine made it too hard to fly fast.”
As the gray Pegasus stared down at the page, her soul was overcome with powerful emotions. The mare could not help but notice a few, small teardrops trickle down her cheeks as she smiled softly, remembering the happy time before her disability. The world had once been so clear for her to see. She had had a sense of purpose and drive when she was young, seeing her way forward with confidence and poise. These things she had lost as her eyes deteriorated, going through many years of not knowing what she should or even could do if her condition had continued to get worse. Though she had gained her sense of self back, it had taken many years and many friends along the way. It took years of her having to get up every day and find some way to smile at the world despite the world not always smiling back at her. Then a thought struck her.
“Doc said that the things in this book can be changed,” Derpy said to herself. “Maybe if I can just change one or two lines here…”
Derpy peered around at her surroundings, noticing that nearby on the floor sat a half-empty inkwell and a quill. She carefully scooped up both in her wing, placing them both down on the table next to the book. She scanned the pages of her early life. She knew the moment she was looking for. She knew what she wanted to change. It took no more than a few moments as her wobbling eyes suddenly trained on a passage of text from a race that she had flown at the Junior Speedsters’ Academy. The first time that her eyes began to move of their own accord, and the first time she had ever lost a race.
“There you are,” Derpy stated. “I’m just fixing my eyes, nothing that could affect all of Equestria, just like Doc said.”
Derpy placed the quill between her teeth and dipped it in the inkwell. As best as she could, she scratched out the line where her eyes went wobbly, and rewrote that they never had. She scribbled that her eyes remained healthy and that she had won the race. A simple change, a small change, a personal change, Derpy thought. Absolutely nothing that could really affect anything major at all.
All it took was a blink of an eye for Derpy to suddenly realize that she was somewhere else entirely. Doctor Whooves’ lab had disappeared and Derpy now found herself sitting in an entirely different room made of the familiar clouds of Cloudsdale. Derpy jumped right out of the chair she was sitting in as the shock of her sudden transportation hit her like a load of bricks. The book, which she had found herself holding, fell onto and then through the cloud floor of the residence and down towards the ground.
“What!” Derpy squeaked. “Cloudsdale? Why am I in Cloudsdale? Where’s Doc’s lab?”
Derpy quickly flew towards a door that she noticed on the far side of the room she was in. The Pegasus mare opened the door and hovered out onto the lawn of the property that the house was on. She frantically shook her head back and forth, trying to discern what had happened to her in the last few seconds, before she realized something odd. As she looked around, she found that everything that she saw, she saw clearly and far more directly.
Derpy shook her head violently several times; each time her vision remained the same, and each time, her eyes never moved without her say-so. For a moment, all of Derpy’s anxiety left as she just hovered there, observing the world without the disorientation that had always accompanied her. She saw everything, everything as it should have been and always was but that she could never truly appreciate. Ponies flying to and fro above the cloudy streets, the rays of the sun, all of which she now could see without having to strain herself. She couldn’t help but take it all in and admire the sense of stability that she seemed to now have. Where sometimes just maintaining balance while hovering had been challenging, she now found that her wings flapped up and down and without her even having to try, she was able to remain oriented correctly. It was after this singular moment of clarity that Derpy remembered, “THE BOOK!”
Derpy whizzed back inside her house, searching and scanning the floor in an effort to locate the magical artifact. She immediately realized what must have happened, stabbing her head through the floor and peering down to the ground below. Cloudsdale was high up, very high up, and Derpy, or anypony really, had absolutely no chance of seeing anything that had hit the ground from such a height. And to make it all worse, Cloudsdale happened to be floating over the Everfree Forest–the very same haunted forest that normal ponies like her rarely returned from.
“Doc’s gonna be so mad at me!” Derpy panicked, suddenly realizing something awful. “Oh no, if my eyes never went bad then…then…my parents never moved us to Ponyville to get away from the bullies. I–I–I never met Doc if I never went to Ponyville!” Derpy’s ears drooped back behind her head and she fell backwards onto the floor. “I never met my best friend.”
Derpy lay there on the floor for quite some time, staring at the ceiling of her cloud home. Despite the newfound clarity of vision she’d received, the Pegasus found her thoughts to be quite jumbled. Her head was filled with memories, memories that she knew were hers, but also not hers. Having never moved to Ponyville, she never technically met any of the friends she had made there, although she still seemed to remember them and all she had done there, along with the memories she recognized as new.
Derpy pondered this for some time, searching her new memories and reviewing the life she had apparently built here in Cloudsdale. She had good friends, a decent house, somehow still a job as a mailmare, and an altogether normal and respectable life. The kind of life that nopony could complain too much about without being considered ungrateful. She had an entire life here, an entire life that she certainly didn’t dislike. In fact, within her memory, she found she had many wonderful and happy memories with the ponies that she now knew and associated with.
It was while Derpy searched through her memories that she started to notice something rather unusual. While her life was clearly different, there were certain differences that began to grate on the gray Pegasus. As Derpy searched through her memories, there were particular ones that she felt should have been among both the new and old memories. Certain major events that had gone on in Equestria over the past several years of her life seemed to be missing.
“Hmm,” Derpy mumbled, “Nightmare Moon is there, as well as Discord, though he’s a bit different.” Derpy racked her brain. “The Changelings as well…but after that…weird, everything’s changed. Discord was never reformed, Twilight’s not a princess, there’s no Crystal Empire, no School of Friendship, no nothing!” Derpy said, getting more and more nervous with each passing second.
Derpy zoomed out of her house and out into Cloudsdale. Things in this reality were terribly wrong and Derpy had to figure out why. In that moment the only thing she could think to do was to head over to Doctor Whooves’ house and try to get answers from the smartest pony she knew.
***
“Doc! Doc!” Derpy shouted as she slammed on the door to Doctor Whooves’ house. “I know you’re in there, Doc!”
Derpy frantically paced back and forth as she waited for a response to her knocking. She knew that Doc had lived in this house since before they had met, so the chances of him still being here were pretty good. Every second that passed made her more and more frantic as she beat on the door ever harder, pacing faster and faster after each knock.
“Hold on, hold on!” she heard a muffled voice call from inside.
Derpy put on her best smile as the door slowly creaked open. On the other side was indeed Doctor Whooves, her dearest friend. Though when he laid eyes on the mare, they remained mostly neutral while hers brightened up considerably.
“Whoa there, bright eyes.” Doctor Whooves said, covering his eyes from the gleam of Derpy’s. “Can I help you?”
Hearing this stung Derpy to her core. The idea of her best friend not knowing who she was almost made her burst into tears on the spot, but she held them back, “Ok, so uh…I need your help,” Derpy said.
Derpy spent the next several minutes explaining everything. No doubt she sounded absolutely insane while doing it, but nevertheless, explain she did. Doctor Whooves listened intently, nodded his head repeatedly, and kept his neutral expression through the entire story.
“So, does all of that make sense?” Derpy asked.
Doctor Whooves stood there, lost in thought as he rubbed his chin with his hoof. After several seemingly endless moments he spoke. “Absolutely.”
“Really!? Well, that’s good, because I thought I sounded crazy or something,” Derpy said, relieved.
“Well, you did sound crazy, but I’ve heard crazier things from very sensible ponies,” Doctor Whooves retorted.
Derpy smiled her absolute best smile at the answer she received. Without hesitation, she lunged in and hugged Doctor Whooves in the biggest hug of her entire life, “That’s such a relief! I was afraid you’d shut the door in my face and then I wouldn’t know what to do.”
Doctor Whooves chuckled and grinned. “Well, I think I might have something that might help with the situation.”
Derpy looked at the Earth Pony with confusion. “Really? What?”
“Follow me, please,” he said before turning back into the house.
Derpy followed Doctor Whooves into his home, which she immediately noted was very different to how she remembered it. It was a normal looking Ponyville dwelling, just with several whiteboards filled with notes, and a few sciency things off to the side. Not nearly as much as Doc had previously, but Doctor Whooves was still Doctor Whooves and the house had a few shelves stocked with inventions that Derpy could see. No piles of technology, merely a more orderly looking lab with not one single plasma ball, which disappointed Derpy immensely.
Doctor Whooves trotted over to the far side of the house, where he had a chair set up with various wires and cables sticking out from it. Attached to the top of the chair was a helmet with multiple multi-colored bulbs sticking from the top and a strap on the bottom. To the side of the chair was a large machine with papers full of charts and graphs flowing out from it like a waterfall.
“Ooh, what’s that?” Derpy asked. “It’s shiny.”
Doctor Whooves chuckled. “Yes, it is, but it’s also something that I think will give us a little bit more clarity on the situation. You see, after a particularly traumatic event as a foal, I developed an interest in the possibility of multiple universes and timelines. For a long time now, I have had this uncanny feeling that things in the world, as you put it, ‘didn’t feel right’. It’s taken nearly my entire life, but I have developed a machine that can actually detect when individuals such as yourself encounter, or in fact are, such anomalies. I’ve only recently completed it and have not yet had the chance to test it out.”
“So, I guess you want to test it out on me then?” Derpy asked.
“Indeed, I do,” replied Doctor Whooves.
“If it’ll help.” Derpy shrugged, jumping into the chair as Doctor Whooves hooked her up to the machine.
Derpy watched as the detector dinged, and buzzed, and hissed. The bulbs on her helmet would light up, turn off, and light up again on repeat as they made a very annoying buzzing noise. The large machine, which Doctor Whooves was inspecting, spat out rolls and rolls of paper that were filled with graphs and symbols that Derpy could not understand. Doctor Whooves glared down at each graph and symbol as it appeared, nodding his head and mumbling things to himself as he went. Derpy couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she was sure it was something very intelligent.
“What’s it say?” Derpy asked.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Derpy heard Doctor Whooves mumble.
Doctor Whooves had a very determined look on his face as he scrolled through the many rolls of paper that had been ejected from the machine. He seemed completely oblivious to Derpy’s attempt to gain his attention as his eyes rolled up and down the papers.
“What’s curious!?” Derpy asked, once again trying to get Doctor Whooves’ attention.
Doctor Whooves hurriedly bunched up the sheets of data, shoving them into Derpy’s face. What the Pegasus saw was a confusing series of wavy lines that criss-crossed across each sheet of graph paper.
“Look here, Derpy.” Doctor Whooves pointed to a series of wavy lines. “This central wave here is the part of your brain that neatly lines up with this reality, see? But this second, separate wave, confirms your earlier statement about having two different sets of memories about your life.”
Derpy nodded.
“You said that this book of yours was called the Book of All Stories, correct?” Doctor Whooves asked.
Derpy nodded again.
“Well then,” Doctor Whooves continued, “that stands to suggest that this book contains, or has the potential to contain, the story of everything ever. And any change to a part of the story could change things in ways that nopony could possibly predict. So, you changing the part of the story where your eyes went wonky made it so that everything that could have been affected by that changed drastically. However, you told me that things that have seemingly no correlation to your eyes have been either altered or wiped from the story altogether. This leads me to believe that the book itself may very well be part of an even greater story!” Doctor Whooves grew more and more excited with each word as he pulled over a chalkboard and began to scribble down a series of lines and charts. “This could mean that you never having your eyes the way they were affected something from this greater story and drastically changed the very fabric of the world itself! Entire storylines were changed or never even existed, as whatever effect your eyes had on the grander narrative disappeared and changed everything! Basically, what I’m saying is that you having weird, wonky eyes seems to be very important to whatever inspired the continuation of the grander narrative.”
“So, what does all of that mean exactly?” Derpy asked.
Doctor Whooves put his hoof on Derpy’s shoulder. “It means that someway, somehow, you were important. What it means is that you inspired something out there that either directly or indirectly helped bring life to the world. And now that you changed yourself from how you were, everything that you inspired ceased to be. I’m certain that if you looked into this magic book of yours, you would find that far more than the history of the world changed. Everything and everypony you ever inspired or had an impact on would no longer exist. If this book does indeed contain the story of everything ever, then perhaps, if you cared to look, you may find truths that you could have never conceived of otherwise.”
“Well, all of that made…no sense, but I need to know how to fix all of this. I think it’s best if I go back to the way things were before I messed with that book,” Derpy cried.
Doctor Whooves gently patted Derpy on the shoulder with his hoof. “The answer is actually quite simple. All you need to do is undo whatever change you made to this Book of All Stories.”
“If only I could,” Derpy lamented, “but it fell into the Everfree Forest. I couldn’t get at it if I tried, with all the monsters that live in there.”
Doctor Whooves smiled. “Well, maybe not alone. I can’t resist a pony in need, and there’s something about you I like that I can’t quite put my hoof on.”
Derpy’s mood immediately brightened up at the news. She burst out of the detector chair and slammed right into Doctor Whooves for another hug. “Thank you so much, Doc! You’re the best friend a mare could have!”
Doctor Whooves blushed slightly. “Oh, um, well, thank you, I suppose. Anyway, we’ll need to gather some equipment before we venture into someplace like Everfree. Come now Derpy! Allons-y!”
Doctor Whooves quickly busied himself gathering various bits and bobs for the expedition into the Everfree Forest. He tossed two saddlebags onto a table and began to fill them with various things that he thought they would need. He packed several sprays that he had created for dealing with many of the dangerous plants and animals within the forest. He gave himself and Derpy a mirror each for Cockatrices, a recorder he had to make music for Ursas, and a few pots and pans to scare off Timberwolves. He even dug a pair of very long, multi-colored scarves for himself and Derpy in case of cold weather.
“Is all this stuff really gonna help?” Derpy asked as she tossed her saddlebag over her barrel.
“Most certainly,” Doctor Whooves replied. “I’ve lived in Ponyville for years, and things always seem to be slinking their way out of the forest to attack the town, so learning how to chase them off is quite mandatory.”
“Oh,” Derpy responded. “Those kinds of things were usually solved by Princess Twilight and her friends back in my Ponyville.”
Doctor Whooves was practically giddy with excitement as he yanked Derpy out of the front door, scarves trailing in the wind behind them, “A real adventure! This is something I’ve always wanted to have but never had the opportunity or drive for.”
Derpy laughed. “Oh, we’ve had lots of adventures over the years. Like there was the time I got chased by Cerberus, or the time you accidentally fell into that nest of giant spiders, and the time whe–”
Doctor Whooves quickly cut her off. “The more we talk, the less we walk! It’s probably for the best that we get there quickly, before you can convince me otherwise,” he said, as he and Derpy continued towards the forest.
***
“We’re here,” he said grimly.
Before them stood the dark and imposing tree line of the Everfree Forest. Its dark brambles and twisted trees cast a shadow over the two ponies like a rising cloud of doom. Dark ivies and twisting roots climbed their way up each tree, and only a small, skinny path could be made out among the clustered branches and tattered leaves.
“It’s spooky. This place has always creeped me out,” Derpy said, slowly shying away from the edge of the forest.
Doctor Whooves laughed and patted her on her mane. “Come now, my friend. Danger and excitement go hoof in hoof. I’m sure we’ll be fine. After all, I’ve come well prepared,” he said, patting his saddlebag.
The forest was indeed horrible. It was dark, damp, and every so often strange screeching noises could be heard off in the shadows of the thick underbrush. Even the air itself seemed different from the air outside the forest as it laid thick and heavy on the two ponies. Every hoofstep had to be slow and methodical as they made their way through the damp mud and roots that littered the forest floor. In some parts, the vegetation was so thick that Derpy couldn’t even hover without getting poked and prodded by branches and thorns.
“Do you have any idea where this book might have landed, Derpy?” Doctor Whooves asked.
Derpy nervously looked around herself, squinting into every shadow where the strange forest noises seemed to be coming from. “Um...not really. I was really high up and I didn’t notice the book had fallen until a while after it did.”
“I see,” Doctor Whooves said. “Well, if you can’t remember, then I might have something that will prove useful.” Doctor Whooves reached into his saddlebag and swung out a small device with various lights and buzzers. “This little guy detects magic. It doesn’t have a great range, but if we start to get close to this book, it should start to go off.”
The device let out a low hum, with a few quiet beeps every so often for good measure. Doctor Whooves waved his hoof around, swinging the device back and forth, looking for the slightest hint of powerful magic. The two adventurous ponies carried deeper into the terrifying Everfree Forest. The deeper they went, the louder and more frequent the strange and worrisome noises that surrounded them became. It was many hours of hiking before, just as the two began to lose hope, the beeping from Doctor Whooves’ machine began to grow audibly louder.
“Derpy!” he called out. “I’ve got something!”
“Oh, thank Celestia,” Derpy sighed, exhausted from the journey through the forest.
The humming and beeping of the machine grew louder and louder with every step the two took. Doctor Whooves, excited by the prospect of viewing this magical book, hurried his steps to a slow gallop, with Derpy accelerating herself forward with her wings. Derpy edged forward, slightly ahead of Doctor Whooves as her excitement to fix her mistake overtook her. Because of this, she failed to notice the branch that jutted down directly in front of her flight path. With a loud THWACK, Derpy tumbled over and down a sudden hill that both ponies had failed to notice. Doctor Whooves called after, slowing to try and safely make his way down the steep hill.
When Derpy finally stopped falling she opened her eyes to a hideous surprise. “Doc!” she called. “Remember when I mentioned giant spiders!?”
“What was that!?” Doctor Whooves called after her as he reached the bottom of the hill. The Earth Pony suddenly halted as he was face to face with an unbelievably massive spider-web. Derpy had gotten caught right in the middle of it and was struggling to move.
“I should probably tell you that spiders really creep me out and we maybe should get me down from here before some show up,” Derpy said, desperately trying to free herself from the web.
Doctor Whooves rushed over towards the web, unhooking the latch on his saddlebag as he approached. “Hmm, let's have a look here,” he said as he poked at the web, “This is quite thick, and judging by its size and thickness, I don’t think I can cut it with anything.”
“Hurry!” Derpy called, “I can’t move!”
Doctor Whooves stuck his hoof into his bag and pulled out a red canister with a spray nozzle at the top. He gave it several good shakes before spraying it over the massive web that held Derpy captive. The web seemed to loosen and slowly unravel wherever the spray landed. Doctor Whooves then stuck his hoof through each strand of web, which were now weak enough to be easily ripped through.
“I’m almost to you,” said Doctor Whooves as he made his way through the huge mass of webbing.
“I think something’s coming!” Derpy frantically called out. “I can feel the web jiggling a lot, and it’s not coming from you.”
“Just a moment,” Doctor Whooves called back.
True enough, a large set of beady, glowing eyes now pierced through the darkness. Derpy could just see these points of hungry light from the corner of her eye, causing her to scream out. The eyes suddenly started to inch closer and closer, the mare struggling to free herself as her companion finally reached her. His spray proved to be successful as the sticky bindings released the Pegasus, and she zoomed in the opposite direction of the spider. Derpy crouched immediately behind Doctor Whooves as the spider, which now, removed from the shadows, proved itself to be nearly three times the size of either of the ponies, approached. Doctor Whooves jammed his hoof into the saddlebag, furiously scrambling for something to chase the hideous beast away.
The spider seemed to screech as it lunged towards the two ponies, only just missing them as Derpy pushed Doctor Whooves out of the way as he was preoccupied with his bag. Derpy flew up and away as high as she could, tears in her eyes, as the spider attempted to jump up after her, missing the Pegasus by mere inches.
“I’ve got it!” Doctor Whooves yelled as he managed to nab a blue can from his bag, waving it for Derpy to see.
But the spider was already on top of him, swinging its great leg and knocking Doctor Whooves to the ground and pushing the can away. Doctor Whooves scrambled as fast as he could away from the spider, but it was faster, quickly shooting thick strands of webbing and wrapping up the scientist in a thick cocoon. All Derpy could hear of her friend now was muffled screaming as his head was covered by the sticky spider-silk. The last words Derpy heard her friend say was a muffled, “Go for the eyes!”
The moment the spider’s attention left her, Derpy mustered her courage, and in a swift movement, dove down for the can, swiped it up, and charged at the spider to free her friend. She smashed the nozzle down in her muzzle, releasing its contents directly at the beast as it looked back to face the new threat. This proved to be quite lucky, as it had exposed its face and eyes, which were now hit full on by the spray. The great spider made a terrible hissing sound as its eyes burned, causing the monster to drop its prey and flee away into the darkness alone.
Derpy rushed towards the cocoon, ripping and tearing as best she could at the freshly woven strands. Her furious effort bore fruit as she managed to free one of Doctor Whooves’ hooves, which then helped her free the rest of him. Tears streamed from Derpy’s face as she ferociously hugged her freed companion.
“Derpy, I do believe you saved my life,” said Doctor Whooves, panting heavily after being freed. “The sincerest thank you, my friend.” He hugged her back.
“I don’t like spiders,” Derpy cried.
“Well, I guess I can no longer claim to be much of a fan either,” Doctor Whooves responded.
Now, somewhere off in the distance, they heard the familiar beep of the magic detector that Doctor Whooves had dropped in the scuffle. Derpy galloped over to it, picked it up and handed it back to the doctor. He aimed it, followed it, and with the help of his red spray, unraveled the webbing that was left in their path.
BEEP! BEEP!
“We’re close,” Doctor Whooves said excitedly.
Finally, after the last of the webs, the duo discovered a small clearing lit by a few gentle rays of afternoon sunlight, where the Book of All Stories rested silently on soft grass.
“That’s it!” Derpy called out, now very carefully making her way towards the magical book.
Once Derpy and Doctor Whooves made sure there were no more spiders lurking about, they both turned their attention towards the immensely powerful artifact that now sat peacefully before them. Doctor Whooves gazed at it in wonder, ideas and theories buzzing and whizzing through his brain, while Derpy merely gave it a tired look before reaching for it.
“Well then, I guess this is it, huh?” Doctor Whooves said, looking towards Derpy as she eagerly flipped through the pages of the book.
“Yeah. I think it’s for the best that Equestria remains how it was, without me messing it up,” Derpy said slowly, finding the page she was looking for.
Doctor Whooves once again patted Derpy gently on her mane. “That would be for the best. It was an interesting day, to say the least.”
Derpy looked up as Doctor Whooves procured a quill and some ink from his pouch and put them on the ground near her, “You’ll be able to get back to Ponyville after I’m gone, right?” she asked, some worry in her voice.
Doctor Whooves laughed. “Of course I will, but if this thing works like I think it might, I don’t think that I’ll have to worry about that.”
Derpy realized what he meant and started to cry, “Oh no! I didn’t think this might all go away! Oh, I wouldn’t feel right doing that now.”
Doctor Whooves turned to leave. “But right now, your Doctor Whooves doesn’t exist, and I think you’ll be wanting him back over me. Besides, it is absolutely imperative that this thing remain as untouched as possible. You know I’m right.”
Derpy nodded, hugged Doctor Whooves one last time, and placed the inked quill in her muzzle. With a few swift strokes, Derpy undid her previous addition to the book, and with a blink of her eyes, found herself back in the laboratory of the Doc she knew so well. It was all there, the clutter, the stacks of gizmos and gadgets, and the windows, now dimmed from the fading light of the setting sun. Derpy rummaged through the stack nearest to the door, uncovered the light switch and turned on the light. She turned back around to see that the Book of All Stories had vanished, leaving behind nothing but a few scattered pages.
“Hey!” Doc called from the staircase. “Who turned on the lights?” He yawned, slowly making his way down the stairs.
Derpy turned towards her friend, sped straight towards him, and hugged him as tears stung her eyes, “Doc! I’m so glad you’re ok!” she cried.
Doc looked confused as he returned the hug. “What are you talking about? It’s not like I’ve never passed out from exhaustion before.”
Derpy just smiled, “I think it would be for the best if we gave what’s left of that book to Princess Twilight and don’t mess with it anymore.”
Doctor Whooves raised an eyebrow in confusion. “But there’s still some tests I would like to run on it. And what’s wrong with the book?”
Derpy moved her friend over to his chair, sat him down, and looked him as straight as she could, in the eye, “It’s a long story, so buckle up.”
“I’m all ears,” Doc said, giving a tired smile.
