//-------------------------------------------------------//
                      DERP THE TEMPO.                      
                     -by ROBCakeran53-                     
//-------------------------------------------------------//
//-------------------------------------------------------//
                      Flailing Limbs                       
//-------------------------------------------------------//
Author's Note
Oh God I'm actually sick. It's been just Vick's and water for two days. I need whiskey send help.
Flailing Limbs
A lot can happen in six months.
You can build a house, or sit down with delicates of another world and hammer out a treaty to allow interstellar travel between both planets.
The later was stretching it a bit far, but somehow it had all worked out. A little over six months ago, the human known as Zach Humpback made his appearance and stamp on the world with his portable music player. Now, Equestria was being flooded with Earth technology, and Earth was flooded in magical radiation.
In hindsight, that sounded a lot better on paper than being read out loud, but it worked out in the end. Now humanity had the ability to access magic and wasn’t boiled alive by any noticeable side effects. One politician had pointed out that at one time, doctors actually endorsed cigarettes, and later found they actually killed people.
It was said that Princess Celestia, at the table, simply shrugged and said “We’ll handle it.”
When the time came for Zach to return home a world hero that paved the way for unity between worlds, he asked if he would get a raise.
His boss and the President of the United States shared a look, then figured it was probably good for their Hero to spend a little more time in Equestria. Building bridges, mopping floors, etc.
Now, just because magic and technology were shared so easily, it didn’t mean the streets of Canterlot were flooded with humans or New York flooded with touring ponies. It was a lot more effort to move a living thing than material objects, so while the Princesses could easily go between worlds to converse, the same couldn’t be said for humans. So after six months, only 5 people, counting Zach, had made the jump to Equestria.
Vermin Supreme, the man with a boot on his head, hadn’t been seen in four months. After him everyone else was made sure to be monitored by guards of the Equestrian crown to ensure their safety.
All except for Zach, because while he was welcomed home in Ponyville, he had the Princess of Friendship and her five friends to make sure nothing happened to the human. Of course, none of them expected for Derpy to happen.
They also didn’t expect Big Macintosh to visit Canterlot so often on Princess Celestia’s behalf, but Applejack figured it was for something important. She just hoped his limp got better so he could work more efficiently.
But the biggest surprise was still Derpy and Zach to announce that they were dating. That was three months ago, and everypony around swore they were the cutest couple they’d ever seen. Then again, none of the town had ever seen how cute humans date, so they had no other opinions on the matter, but from a pony standpoint it was cute.
It just so happened, on the mark of their three month anniversary (which was today!) that they were both stuck working. Derpy, after crashing Twilight’s party six months ago, had been “Promoted” as they put it to mail sorting duty until they could figure out just what happened that day.
Well, other than rumors of Celestia finally finding a suitor and Rainbow Dash dating Applejack. Still! Nopony complained and all went back to normal, except for how close Derpy got to Zach, and he in return. There was also a reason why nopony ever bet against Princess Cadance, because she would always rake in the bits. Shining Armor found it kind of terrifying when she got that glint in her eyes.
“Hey Derpy! More mail going outbound!”
Derpy looked up from her stool in the Ponyville Postal Office basement, and was greeted with a shower of letters and a few packages.
The grey pegasus let out a disconcerting sigh, both eyes drifting away as she lost focus.
“Also,” the voice called from above, “you got a special visitor.”
Derpy perked up at that, and from the small stairwell in the corner came the one person she wanted to see the most.
“Zach!”
“Hey Dee!”
Derpy launched from her stool, gliding by her two co-sorters (and messing up their sorting work they noted) and latched onto Zach’s shoulders, hugging him tight.
“Hey, easy there Dee! You’re gonna break your gift!”
Quickly, Derpy broke away from her boy/coltfriend, standing on all fours. “Gift?”
Zach nodded. “Yeah, today’s our anniversary, and I know you’re stuck here all day and I’m still cleaning the west wing of Twilight’s castle, so we won’t see each other for most of the day. I thought I’d bring you your gift now, so you could enjoy it.”
“Oh Zach, you shouldn’t have… and I didn’t get you anything…” Derpy frowned, ears flat and casting her head down.
Zach was quick to kneel down, and picked her head up from her chin. “Hey, don’t worry about it Dee.”
“Still…” Derpy pouted.
So Zach did the only thing a sensible human male could do.
He shut up and kissed the pony.
The two sorter ponies “Ohh ohh (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://youtu.be/TrRbB-qUJfY?t%3D120&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1711857000807603&usg=AOvVaw1Gw38ms4X9-IJPv_Y7siqx)” in harmony, readying to sing.
Zach pulled away. “No singing!”
Both mare and stallion stopped, shrugged, and went back to work.
“Anyway, I gotta get back to the castle. Royal duty waits for no one.”
“Except the janitor!” Derpy said back.
Zach rubbed his hand on her head. “Yes, exactly.” Zach pulled the gift out from his pocket, handing the small box over to her. “I had this requested from home.”
Derpy opened the box with vigor, and pulled out the small device with curiosity. “What is it?”
“Well, you remember my music player right? That Princess Twilight confiscated for fears of ending Equestria in a giant orgy?”
“Nopony’s still told me what orgy means!”
Zach patted her head again. “For good reasons, I’m sure Dee. Anyway, I sent home for my old Walkman! It even still has one of my favorite tracks in it.”
“Oh wow, Zach.This is amazing! I love it, but, I mean, don’t you need this more?” Derpy pulled out the device, a pair of ear muff looking headphones along with it.
Zach looked around. “Dee, you’re stuck in a basement sorting letters by literal candle light. I can barely even see in here, I don’t know how you do it.”
Derpy derped her eyes, which seemed to glow gold in the dark.
“Right, special eyes.”
“My brand.” Derpy whispered huskily.
“Still, at least I get to see outside and meet ponies. You could use the distraction while you work and lack of company.
The sorting mare in the back let out a cough.
“So yes, I want you to have it. Maybe one day I’ll be able to afford to have something more modern shipped over, but until then, this will have to do.”
Derpy hugged Zach, the human returning the embrace as they nuzzled into each other. The sorting stallion let out a “aw”, but was shut up by a brown package hitting his head from the other wall.
After several long seconds, the two separated. “Okay Dee, I’ll see you tonight for dinner. Your place, right?”
Derpy nodded. “Yeah, last time I got lost in the castle looking for your room. I think I lost my daughter in there somewhere.”
“Yeah, once in awhile I find a sticky note from Dinky saying she’s doing okay. Still somehow makes it to school every day, no tardies.”
“That’s my little Muffin!”
With a quick peck on the cheek, Zach left up the stairs, closing the door that was casting what little light into the room that the candles couldn’t hope to bring.
“Saaaaaappy,” The mare in the back said.
“Yeah, we’re like tree sap, stuck together,” Derpy said with a coo. The sorting mare clopped a hoof to her head in frustration, as Derpy made it back over to her station.
As much as the mare wanted to put the headphones on right away and try the music player, or Walkman as Zach had called it, she felt she’d already used up most of her break time just seeing him. Jumping right back into sorting her mail stack, she noticed it had also grown since she left her station.
With a sigh, she began sorting once again.
—-------
An hour later, and most of the mail had been sorted. Boxed for outgoing, bagged for in-town deliveries, and ready to go.
Everypony in the post office basement decided then and there was the perfect time to have lunch, which had rolled over by 30 minutes.
As Derpy unpacked her lunch goods, her eye(s) roamed over to the Walkman Zach had given her. Taking a bite out of her sandwich, holding said nom nom with her wings, she picked up the headphones with her hooves and placed them over her ears. They were definitely not made for ponies, but neither had the buds, but she’d make them work.
Munch munch, went her sandwich, and after studying the Walkman, Derpy noticed it had very similar buttons to the MP3 player she’d used before. With a shrug, and another bite of her sandwich, Derpy did what would start, arguably, one of the craziest days in Ponyville History, only rivaled by the last time she’d started such a thing.
Music (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://youtu.be/JEq10L7u3SM?t%3D36&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1711857000810044&usg=AOvVaw2NM00ulT8S6gz5fWgXDBI_) began to pulse in Derpy’s ears, high beat and repetitive. It was actually quite nice, so Derpy next went to her pudding cup. Mmm, tapioca!
However, something was suddenly quite apparent. Her hoof holding her spoon wouldn’t get into the cup. Instead, it started to wave around and smacking into her lunch box and other food stuffs.
The sound of her lunch box hitting the floor seemed to draw the other two pony’s attention, as Derpy managed to get her wings around the Walkman and hit the stop button.
She was breathing hard, panting, hooves and wingtips shaking from the adrenaline rush as she removed the headphones.
“Uh, Derpy? You okay over there?” asked the stallion, his sandwich half eaten and hovering in front of his face with his magic.
The other mare simply rolled her eyes and continued to destroy her Taco Bell(R) Burrito.
Slowly, Derpy turned around to look at the other ponies. “It… that was just like last time!”
“What was like last time?” he asked.
“The music!” Derpy trotted over, then placed the Walkman on the table between the two other ponies.
With a shrug, the stallion placed the headphones over his ears, they twitched with the unfamiliar feeling, and waited.
Then Derpy pressed the play button.
The unicorn found his magic begin to glow from his horn, and hooves, once resting on the table, found themselves waving around crazily, smacking his lunch, sorted mail, even the mare beside him!
And it wasn’t just him, either, as the mare was randomly waving her arms about, and Derpy’s wings were sending sorted stacks of mail everywhere.
Struggling, Derpy got her hooves to work and stopped the tape again. “Don’t you see!? I need to show this to Princess Twilight right away! This is huge!”
The stallion, in a flurry of his hooves, threw the headphones off of his head. “What was that!?”
“That’s what happened months ago and got a lot of ponies pregnant!” Derpy said, taking the Walkman in her hooves, then began to fly towards the stairs.
“Wait, Derpy, stop, you can’t just go!” The stallion protested, standing to chase.
The mare continued to stare at her hooves, confused, disgusted, and above all else… excited. The stallion she’d been working with for the last year and a half took off running after Derpy. She watched his, surprisingly toned flanks rush up the stairs. “Screw this damn job.” she thought as she too gave chase.
—-------
It was a beautiful day out on the streets of Ponyville, especially around the market square.
Princess Celestia, well half way into her pregnancy term, trotted along with Big Macintosh, her consort, and a gaggle of guards who ensured that while ponies could talk with the couple, they couldn’t keep them for too long.
After all, this was their day for themselves.
Dealing with noble ponies and bucking apple trees left the two busy most of the time, so when they got these rare moments of peace, it was nice to take a walk around town, or go for a swan boat ride around the castle moat.
Sides pressed together as they walked, they hummed in contentment. The wedding would be right after the foal was born, so nothing could go wrong.
And then Derpy Hooves crashed into one of her guards.
While it wasn’t unusual for the mail mare to crash into somepony, when it was a guard, one of the best of the best, chosen solely for defense of the Princesses (and one consort), it was quite alarming.
“Oh, hello Miss Hooves! How wonderful to see you!” Celestia said, lowering her muzzle to nuzzle the gray mare, and assisting in helping her to her hooves.
“Ow, what? Oh, OH! Princess! It’s you!”
Sitting up straight, Celestia nodded. “It is indeed. What brings you by?”
Derpy brushed herself off, and all present seemed to ignore the downed guard as two of his fellows began assisting the knocked out pony.
“Twilight said that if I ever encountered anything weird from Zach like the last time, to make sure I told her! And I have, I did!” Derpy held up the Walkman and headphones, just in time for the mare and stallion to catch up to her.
“Derpy, we need to get back!” the stallion said, panting.
The mare simply nodded.
“Oh? Is this another one of his… music devices? One of those things in which he was prohibited from bringing over again?”
Big Mac, and a few of the guards, shuddered at her darker tone.
“Yeah! He’s so thoughtful, giving me such nice gifts. Anyway, I was going to find Twilight, but since you’re here, maybe you can take a look?”
Derpy pushed the headphones towards the princess. Big Mac gulped.
The guards gulped.
The mare and stallion gulped.
Even I just gulped.
Using her magic, Celestia placed the headphones on her head, and Derpy hit the play button.
At first, nothing happened. In fact, after that, nothing happened, other than such loud and upbeat music.
“How strange, maybe it will work for you Mac?”
Not even giving the stallion a choice, she placed the headphones upon his head, and when the music began assaulting his ears he began to vibrate, and shimmy around in place.
An act which, genuinely, took the foal carrying princess off guard.
Quickly Big Mac threw off the headphones, which bounced off the ground, and landed against the head of the prone guard.
Who then too began, even unconscious, to shift his body around, bumping into ponies stalls and other guards who tried to wrangle him.
“My, this is most peculiar, isn’t it?” Celestia continued to watch the chaos unfold, until she noticed a white unicorn mare with vibrant blue mane walking by. Her purple glasses, and the DJ set up she dragged with her in a little red wagon, gave her an idea.
“Oh, Vinyl was it?”
“Hm? Oh, hey Miss Princess, what’s hangin’? Besides yer stud, anyway,” Vinyl Scratch said with a snort of laughter.
Big Mac blushed, as the guards had begun to detain Derpy, their downed guard, and the other two postal workers who were confused as to what’s going on now.
“Does that work?” Celestia pointed to the DJ set up.
“Does Big Mac taste good?” she said with a flip of her mane, then kicked her DJ set up and a tray opened. “Put any sort of media in here, and it’ll analyze it and play it. Just not Betamax or HDDVD’s, for some reason.”
Using her magic, Celestia removed the Walkman from her guard, and placed it into the slot. It closed, and Vinyl hit play (https://www.google.com/url?q=https://youtu.be/JEq10L7u3SM?t%3D149&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1711857000813644&usg=AOvVaw1PydcUalDV0pJvV_XIEaqX).
Slowly, ponies all around quirked their ears, looking around for the strange music, before their bodies began to take over on their own. Ponies swayed, bumped, moved, glided, slid into each other and their stalls.
Now Celestia felt it, and so did her guards, who all were as shocked as she was, as everything around them turned into utter chaos.
They also tried to ignore the postal mare and stallion… well, getting friendly behind one of the stalls.
Vinyl Scratch was in pure bliss, air humping and throwing her body about, even slamming into Big Mac at one point, sending him into his future wife, which hit one of the larger stalls.
It was like a domino effect, as her ladened barrel kicked the first stall over, which took out the next, then the next.
Before anypony knew what was going on, the group was surrounded by more guards and the Ponyville Police breaking up all the chaos. With a giggle and flutter of her wings, Celestia took Mac in her magic and they flew away.
Vinyl began fighting back, and only lost one tooth.
The affected guards were tried for incompetence but the report was “lost”.
The postal couple, who had been harboring pent up sexual frustration for the last year and a half together, were now together together.
And Derpy? Well…
—-------
Princess Twilight Sparkle paced around her map table thingie. Derpy Hooves was seated in one of the thrones, so was Zach.
In the middle of the table was the Walkman.
“I really don’t want to, but you leave me no other choice.” She took in a deep breath, let it out, then looked at the two.
She pointed a hoof at Derpy. “You’re not allowed to be within 100 feet of Princess Celestia. Or Big Mac, not that he minds, but they were last seen… doing stuff together, in public.”
Then she pointed to Zach. “And YOU. You’re not allowed anything else from Earth unless I check it out first.”
Both human and pony looked at each other, then back to Princess Twilight and nodded.
“So until then, I’ll be keeping this along with the other one you had.”
“Yes, Princess Twilight,” muttered Zach.
“Yes, Twilight,” muttered Derpy.
“Good, now, you two run along. I have a mess of paperwork to sort after all of this, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be presiding a wedding between your coworkers soon. Be sure to send them a card.”
“Oh really? Which ones?” Derpy asked.
Twilight opened her mouth, paused, then shook her head. “Never mind. Just go.”
With no further pushing Derpy and Zach left Twilight’s map room, the door clicking closed behind them.
With a sigh, Twilight sat down at the table in her throne, then began to sort the papers around her. She took a sip of her tea, then, her eyes roamed towards the Walkman.
Curiously, she lifted the headphones up, placed them on her ears, and pressed play.
“Push the Tempo!” she all but shouted, then began flailing like a sperglord, sending papers and tea everywhere.
Human technology really was too much for Equestria.