House Arrest

Chapters

Hour Zero: Grounded
Hour One: She Wears the Pants
Hour Two: Unwanted Visitors
Hour Three: Static in the Attic
Hour Four: The Descent
Hour Five: Perfectly Imperfect

Hour Zero: Grounded

House Arrest

Written and edited by: High Rise

H O U R Z E R O

Another fine and peaceful summer day was drawing to a close over the towers of Canterlot, the low hanging sun casting warm colors into the cool waterfalls that flowed down the adjacent mountain. Restaurants were picking up business for dinnertime as delicious smells from the kitchens hypnotized hungry passerby and convincing sandwich specials overtook those whose hunger was only slight. Ponies napping behind west facing windows were starting to awake, annoyed by the intrusive light and cursing themselves for forgetting to close the blinds. Rush hour hoof traffic thundered back through the front gate, full of working ponies tired of their jobs in Ponyville and eager to rejoin their families. Shouts of bumping roughly into one another and angry outbursts of being late for appointments were common. Canterlot guards could be seen hauling off disruptive ponies, their captives kicking and yelling about—oh wait did I say this was a peaceful night? What an awfully stupid thing to say. We’re talking about a Friday here; the beginning of everypony’s favorite time of the week: the weekend!

And just like everypony else who were excited for the weekend, a certain pair of ponies who lived in a small home on the far end of Canterlot’s main lane were feeling the rush as well.

Well, one of them anyway.

“Vinyl. Vinyl! I’m going to be late! You’ve been in there almost an hour!” squealed Octavia’s muffled voice from outside the bathroom door. Inside the medicine cabinet, a place where medicine and other things a normal pony kept, was a stereo. A very loud rock song was blasting through the speakers connected to it, the bass causing the whole steam-filled room to vibrate slightly. Vinyl Scratch was busy on air guitar, her head wrapped in a puffy black towel.

“Take a chill pill, Miss Overkill! After the solo!” she shouted through the noise, as what sounded like machine gun fire was going off, the hundreds of bursts in the form of musical notes. Vinyl’s towel flew off her head as she reared on her hind legs, moving her hooves up and down wildly.

“VINYL!”

BOOM. The door sounded like a rhinoceros had just charged into it. Vinyl jumped back in shock and finally turned down her music.

“Okayokayokay! Celestia, keep your bowtie on, Tavi—”

The door crashed open the instant Vinyl had unlocked it. Octavia was trotting in place with an anxious look on her face. Pushing past Vinyl with a look of great annoyance, she slammed the door on her.

“Geez, looks like somepony’s time of the month,” mumbled Vinyl, feeling her wet and frizzy hair. She turned to walk back into the living room.

A large L-shaped couch bordered the far corner of the room, white and squashy. Nearly a dozen red pillows of all shapes, sizes and texture were arranged throughout the couch. A coffee table with nothing but a neat stack of magazines on the center sat beside it. The glass top was dust-free like always, because of Octavia’s obsessive cleaning habits. Dim light was seeping through the window blinds, which were all closed. What a perfect place to take a nap!

But Vinyl never took naps on Friday nights. She ignored the inviting scene and grabbed a small blue remote from off the couch. She pointed it lazily towards another stereo in the kitchen.

This stereo made the one in the bathroom look like a cheap transistor radio. Four layers of buttons, screens and knobs began lighting up in neon colors. Two enormous speakers the size of her whole body stood on both sides, an expensive looking turntable sitting on the very top. Beside the stereo was a cabinet with a large stack of vinyl records on top (Vinyl had disturbed this pile so often, Octavia didn’t ever bother organizing it).

“Let’s see,” said Vinyl, grabbing the stack and plopping down on the couch. She started to flip through her choices. “Smoking doobies—nah—synthetic pop—not today—indie—not enough bass—wait—the heck?”

Vinyl pulled out a record with the outline of a cello fading into a colorful sunset on the front.

“Pulling Heart Strings?” she read, looking at the title in disgust. “Wow, Tavi—” Her horn lit up and lifted the record back onto the cabinet, making sure it would remain at the very bottom.

“Lawnmowers having sex—we’re getting there—keyboards with dynamite—almost—awesome, here we go—” At last she pulled out a brand new looking record, titled “Turn Up and Shut Up.” Slipping the disc out of its case, she walked over to the stereo and slipped the sleek black disc onto the turntable.

“Time for a blow dry, baby!” she shouted.

The deafening roar of a crowd filled the entire room. Vinyl picked up a nearby mane brush and began brushing her electric-blue mane, grinning from ear to ear at the noise. The music began to rise, causing the crowd’s shouts to increase to earsplitting levels. Chills ran down Vinyl’s spine and her fur stood on end until finally—

“—RELEASE!”

WHAM. The drop hit Vinyl’s mane like a hurricane, sending her hair all over the place. A distant thud followed by a wail of shock sounded from the bathroom. Octavia must have fell off the toilet.

Like this was an everyday occurrence, Vinyl began smoothing out her cowlicks and split ends, the shape of her mane curling naturally into its normal buzz saw. Her head automatically began gently banging to the music.

It would have been remarkable if a bomb explosion would have been heard through the music. But somehow, Vinyl was able to recognize the distant ringing of a telephone in the kitchen. Throwing down her brush, she turned down the music with her horn and answered the phone.

“Berry Punch!” said Vinyl Scratch loudly. “What’s up sista from anotha mista?”

The high speed giggly voice of a filly could be heard on the other line.

“Whoa whoa girl! Slow it down a notch, I can’t understand a freakin’ word you’re saying—”

“—What? Oh haha! Sorryyyy—HAHAHA!”

“What are you guys doing?”

Crashes and joyful screams from other fillies started filling the receiver. It was like trying to talk to a dozen Pinkie Pies inside a bounce house.

“Haha Colgate no. No! Ahahaha!”

Vinyl was shaking her head, but grinning widely. She heard Octavia open the bathroom door.

“Oh my—goodness—haha—Vinyl! Sorry—so you still coming tonight? The train for Ponyville leaves at—”

“Vinyl, I need to talk to you,” said Octavia from behind her. She did not look happy. Vinyl raised a hoof for her to wait a moment.

“Yeah I know, seven. Wait—what time is it—” She glanced at the digital clock on the counter. 6:42.

“Vinyl!”

“Dang, I gotta go!” said Vinyl, ignoring Octavia again. She had lost track of time.

Vinyl was in the process of saying her goodbyes when Octavia picked up the phone base and threw it to the ground, sending plastic pieces flying all over the floor and ending the phone call immediately.

Octavia had a glare of pure venom. Her cheeks were pink, puffed out with fury. Vinyl still held the receiver in her hoof, the cord now disconnected. Her eyes were wide with shock.

It was a while before Vinyl dared to say anything.

“Tavi?” she said timidly.

“My name is Octavia. You know how much I hate you calling me ‘Tavi’.”

Vinyl was silent. The quiet thuds of the music were still playing in the background.

“Look, Octavia, I’m sorry about making you wait so long. I lost track of time. But can we talk about this later?”

“No, Vinyl,” said Octavia, walking over to the stereo and hitting the off button harder than necessary. “You wasted my time, so now I’m wasting yours.”

“Look, Octavia, I only have like fifteen minutes to get on the train!”

Octavia ignored all of this.

“So when was the last time you helped pay for rent, Vinyl?”

Vinyl sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Oh not this again—”

“When?”

Vinyl groaned. “March, Octavia. March. I told you, I still need to pay off that other mixer—”

“That’s fine, but what about all this?” said Octavia, waving a foreleg at the enormous stereo. Since March, you have bought one of these in every room, Vinyl. Every room. Thousands of bits! And that’s not even including the ridiculous amounts of times you eat at restaurants on a regular basis!”

“Okay, fine, I’ll stop eating out all the time. But I can’t sell my stereos! It’s who I am, Octavia. It’s my job—It’s my life!”

Octavia paused, glaring at her.

“Music is a part of my soul too, Vinyl,” said Octavia. Her voice was higher now. “You know that, don’t you? Or maybe you don’t—you seem to have forgotten there’s another pony around here too—”

“You know that’s not true, Tavi—”

“—My name is Octavia—”

“—Octavia! Right! Sorry! Look Octavia, you’re my best friend. I won’t ever forget that. But—”

Vinyl glanced at the clock again. She had only ten minutes now.

“Octavia...,” pleaded Vinyl.

Octavia looked like she was about to give in. She had argued with Vinyl about the same issue several times before. But she had reached the end of her rope.

“You take one step out that door and you’re out on the streets,” seethed Octavia, as Vinyl was trying to sneak away.

Vinyl froze.

“W-what?” She looked as though Octavia had just uttered a disgusting swear word.

“You’re not going anywhere tonight,” said Octavia, her voice in a finalized tone. “If you leave this house for Ponyville, I swear to Celestia you will never darken this doorstep again.”

Vinyl’s mouth hung open for a few second before she could speak.

“Who do you think you are? My mom?” She wanted to laugh, but with the look Octavia was giving her, pulling the hairs off a sleeping manticore would have been a safer alternative.

“No, I’m just sick of doing everything for you all the time. Grow up, Vinyl. Just because you’re famous now doesn’t mean you’re entitled to do whatever you want.” She picked up a mirror and checked her appearance one last time before setting it down. She pulled out a slip of paper from her pink bowtie.

“I’ve got a play to get to. I worked too hard to receive an invitation from one of Celestia’s royal guards to let it be ruined by my careless friend. I’ll be home by midnight.”

As Vinyl stood there, still frozen in her tracks, Octavia gave her a menacing look and shut the door behind her.

A few moments later, the door reopened and Octavia’s face appeared.

“Let anypony in this house except me and you’ll meet the same punishment,” she said dangerously. Her eyes then flashed towards the pieces of the telephone on the ground.

“And pick up that mess. Goodbye.” The door shut for the final time. The sound of Octavia’s hooves in a quick canter faded away down the street.

A ringing silence followed.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Vinyl quietly. She went to the kitchen and glanced again at the clock. Even if she was allowed to leave, she wouldn’t be able to make the train by now. Vinyl reared on her hind legs and clutched her half-brushed mane.

“Ugh!”

She felt awfully stupid. Put on house arrest by her own best friend? She felt like she was back home again as a young filly, being grounded by her overprotective mother. She thought she had left that life behind her now she lived in Canterlot. She thought she had grown up now and didn’t have to deal with that sort of garbage anymore.

“Ugh!” she growled again, picking up the pieces of the phone with her magic and chucking them into the trash bin violently. The severed cord protruding from the wall dangled pathetically, wires poking out the end.

What were Berry Punch and the others going to think? They had a whole night planned out, and she was expected to show up by dozens of ponies. If Vinyl didn't show, they would think she had ditched them all to hang out with other ponies up in Canterlot. Which certainly wasn’t true, but she couldn’t do anything about it now that Octavia had mutilated her only source of communication.

Fuming, Vinyl collapsed on the couch and grabbed the nearest pillow and screamed into it. The poor pillow, which hadn’t done a single thing, was forced to have all levels of profanity shouted into it. Although they were inanimate objects, you had to feel at least a little sympathy for them, subject to all kinds of torture.

Vinyl, depleted of four letter words, threw the innocent pillow into the opposing wall. She hadn’t stayed home on a Friday night in living memory. Let alone…alone.

F I V E H O U R S R E M A I N

Hour One: She Wears the Pants

H O U R O N E

“Octavia, you alright?” whispered a deep voice.

Octavia was standing upon a balcony in a row of red velvet seats, high above the ground floor, gazing down into the great red curtain on stage. All around them was a handsome brass-plated theater, full of ponies waiting for the performance to begin. Next to her was the Canterlot guard, who was scanning her face with concern. He was unarmored, replaced with a handsome suit and gold tie. His stocky build matched his voice. Octavia had no feelings for him, for burly meatheads weren’t her type, but had delightfully accepted his invitation anyway. Being able to stand in the royal section of a theatre next to one of Celestia’s royal guards was something she had wanted to cross off her bucket list since she was a small filly.

“Hm?” said Octavia distractedly. “Oh—oh, I’m sorry—it’s nothing.” She gave a false smile, but it didn’t lift the pegasus’ expression.

“Would you rather we stand somewhere else?” He looked around, prepared to push ponies off the balcony.

“Oh no, Sledge, you’re fine. I'm perfectly happy here,” she tried to give a more convincing smile.

“Well alright, then,” he said, but still looking suspicious.

A mustached pony (how equines managed to grow facial hair had always been a mystery to Octavia) walked on stage. He boomed at the audience with an enthusiastic welcome, sending ripples of cheers through the theater. Sledge applauded with them, glancing sideways at Octavia to see if she did so too. Noticing she hadn’t, he tried to initiate a conversation.

“So I was doing my graveyard watch the other night and this pegasus—”

“How do you know if you’ve done the right thing, Sledge?” asked Octavia suddenly, interrupting him.

“I—what makes you say that?” asked Sledge, looking taken aback.

The stallion on stage ended his introduction and the audience applauded again. The lights dimmed and then the large curtain drew itself back, revealing the set.

“I had a fight with a friend of mine today and I feel like I went a little overboard,” whispered Octavia.

Sledge bent his head forward. “What happened?” he asked.

Octavia never liked talking ill of other ponies behind their backs, but she had to vent to somepony. Even if it was a breathing brick wall. At first, she made it sound like the fight was all her fault, as though she had just approached Vinyl unprovoked and starting unleashing Tartarus on her. But by the end, she was hissing angrily and jerking her forelegs about, tears swelling in her eyes. Sledge listened intently, his expression becoming noticeably frustrated as well.

“She’s a rebel, Octavia,” said Sledge judgingly. “Rebels need to be taught order. You have done everything right.”

Octavia could have said she murdered Vinyl with her cello bow then ate her internal organs and he would have said the same thing. But what the aptly named pegasus said was true; Vinyl needed to be scratched. If that scratch involved laying waste to telephones and yelling at her like a parent, then so be it.

“I guess so…,” said Octavia. She smiled weakly to herself and her attention became drawn by the colorful actors on stage.

░ ░ ░

“No—no—no—no—”

Vinyl had the entire contents of the record cabinet in a messy heap on the table. Flipping through each of them so fast, pausing to look at the titles for only a split second, she frisbeed her rejections onto the couch beside her.

“—No—no—no—no—come on! Where the heck is it?” said Vinyl angrily. She had searched through the pile three times, but still couldn’t find what she was looking for. She hopped off the couch and ran towards a short flight of stairs off of the front door. When she approached the second floor landing, there was only one of two doors. She opened one of them to reveal a room that resembled a warehouse. Octavia, intelligent, knew it was a waste of time to bother with this nightmare, too.

Boxes and boxes of power cords, records, sound systems and other disc jockey equipment piled all over the room. An overflowing wicker trash bin sat underneath the window, filled with mostly crumpled up pieces of paper and faulty cords. Purple light was flowing into the room, the post-sunset evening quickly fading into nighttime. Strange and graphic posters filled up the walls, some sporting fan-made drawings of Vinyl herself. The only orderly sight in the whole room, Vinyl’s bed, looked as though it hadn’t been slept on in weeks. A mini fridge sat in the corner, a visible path cleared before it.

Vinyl began picking up boxes and throwing them on her bed, carefully stepping around the huge mess. Eventually she was able to reach the boxes that housed the rest of her collection of records She grabbed one of them and hauled it downstairs.

After several trips, the living room was now swimming in large black discs. It looked as though Vinyl had completely robbed a good sized music store.

Eventually she found what she was looking for. Looking extremely annoyed, she took out a disc with a spider web designed across it, the spindly letters reading “Cabin Fever”. She took off “Turn Up and Shut Up” and slammed the spider web disc down on the turntable. Vinyl punched the power button back to its on position.

Grotesque heavy metal music overtook the silence like a sudden war had just started in the living room. The music would have scared the living daylight out of Octavia. Vinyl simply nodded and then turned back to her huge pile of records. She smirked at the sight, the smaller half of her considering to just leaving the pile there and make Octavia deal with it as punishment for leaving her here alone. The larger half, thankfully, smacked her upside the head with common sense.

Impatiently, she began to sort them all alphabetically, starting with the Zs, but gave up almost immediately afterward.

“To heck with this,” mumbled Vinyl, chucking her records back into the boxes hurriedly. “I’m not spending my whole night alphabetizing all these.”

She stuffed all the boxes hurriedly with a demented look on her face, the aggressive music amazingly fitting. But as quick as the look came, it vanished.

When all the boxes were full, excluding the records she kept in the cabinet for quick access, she hauled them back into her bedroom.

Vinyl had just replaced the last box when her stomach rumbled loudly. She fell onto her bed and stared hungrily at the ceiling.

“Aw dude…I could totally use a pizza from Sauce Top right now,” she said, groaning. Their veggie pizzas were legendary. “Oh wait, Octavia destroyed the stupid phone,” she added sarcastically, putting her foreleg hooves over her eyes.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up, an egg shell of an idea hatching in her mind.

How exactly was Octavia going to know she left home? All she would have to do is run to Sauce Top, pick up a pizza, and then hurry back. Octavia wasn’t going to be back for hours and Sauce Top was just down the street. She could bring home the pizza, eat the thing, stuff the empty box under her bed, and throw it away on another day! Octavia never bothered going in her room anyway. Nopony would be the wiser!

“Hey hey! You told Octavia you weren’t eating out anymore, dude!” rang a voice through her ears as she stubbornly amassed some bits lying around.

“Just one more time. Tomorrow will be a new day,” she thought back at the voice.

“You’re an idiot, you know that dude? Why don’t you just listen to me for once—” insulted the voice.

“Who are you calling an idiot, pal? Get lost!” thought Vinyl.

“Whoa, you can’t talk to your conscious like that—”

Vinyl made a notion with her hoof to act as though she was turning down the volume on her thoughts like a knob on one of her stereos. Looking quizzical, realizing she had just argued with herself, she picked up a black purse and slunk the bits into it.

Vinyl walked back downstairs to the living room and turned off the stereo, her aggression calming. She went to put her hoof on the doorknob to the front door when she stopped to look at a picture frame on a nearby shelf. In the frame was a blushing Octavia shaking hooves with Princess Celestia, who was congratulating her on winning the blue ribbon at the Canterlot Gardens. It was the happiest Vinyl had ever seen her. But Vinyl remembered that happiness being reduced to shambles when she had gotten into a fight with her later that night. Octavia went to bed before sundown and didn’t come out of her room until well after noon the next day.

Vinyl stared at the picture, recalling the incident as though it was yesterday. Octavia had come home in the evening to find the house filled with smoke. Vinyl had been cooking dinner in the oven when she had fallen asleep on the couch and let it burn. Although not too upset by the smoke, Octavia was fuming that Vinyl wasn’t at the Canterlot Gardens to see her obtain her ribbon. A photographer had taken the picture and Octavia had it framed for all to see. But Vinyl privately thought Octavia only had it there to make sure Vinyl never forgot she screwed up.

Vinyl sighed and lay down her purse on the shelf, unable to cross such a boundary. Octavia could just as well have been standing right there blocking the front door. Maybe Vinyl would just make herself a sandwich.

When the peanut butter and honey sandwich had been made, Vinyl scarfed half of it down in one bite like she hadn’t eaten in days. She walked over to the kitchen window and peered out of the blinds into the street.

The bustling hoof traffic of the night life was in full swing. Groups of ponies, some of which Vinyl knew, were hurrying down the road, looking excited. Vinyl pressed a hoof to the window sadly, taking another bite out of her sandwich. Oh how she wished she was out there. She felt like a caged bird, gazing out the window hopelessly. She was powerless.

Or was she? Vinyl pigged the remains of the sandwich down and turned back to face the living room. She may have been alone, but she had all her music to keep her company! There were magazines to read, notebook paper for writing down inspiration for future songs, projects in her room she could work on to pass the time. Her and Octavia’s house wasn’t exactly a bore to exist in.

But then again…she was still alone. All of these projects, as enticing as they were on a week night, just didn’t seem appealing on the weekend. She needed company.

But how was she going to feel that company? She couldn’t invite anypony over. And even if she could, she had no way of doing so. Turning on her music full blast wasn’t going to be enough, either.

Vinyl paced around the kitchen, her mind racing. She glanced at the clock, which was closing in on eight-o-clock.

“Celestia, really? It’s only been an hour?” she retorted aloud. “The party down at Berry Punch’s would be in full swing by now—”

Vinyl stopped. A party. She could throw her own party! Well, she couldn’t invite anypony to it obviously, but she could at least make it feel like a party was happening. Surely that would help matters. Yes…yes…

A wide and rather creepy grin spread across her face as another egg shell of an idea was hatching, hopefully this time a bit less empty than the last.

F O U R H O U R S R E M A I N

Hour Two: Unwanted Visitors

H O U R T W O

Vinyl pulled out the records from the cabinet yet again, fumbling some of them onto the carpet, a crazed look dancing in her eyes. Octavia wasn’t going to prevent her from having fun tonight, even if it meant throwing her own, one pony party. Vinyl spread the records across the glass table messily, knocking all the magazines to the floor. Yet again, she searched for a new disc for the turntable.

“Yesssss…yessss…”

Vinyl slapped down a faded record that looked like it had been used hundreds of times.

“PARTY AT VINYL’S” read in electric blue lettering on the disc. Of course she was going to use this one above all the others—it was her own work. Vinyl spun the disc on her hoof and sent it over to the turntable with her magic, delighted at her own brilliant plan about to unfold.

A series of synthetic laser noises shot through the air in great speed, signifying yet another battle sounded like it was taking place right there under the roof. Slowly, seamlessly, they transformed into a bass pattern. All sorts of filler noise surrounded the rising power of the bass, including distant shouting of Vinyl’s voice, digitally distorted. The timing of it all was perfect; nothing less would have been acceptable. It was one of the many reasons DJ-Pon3 was the undisputed queen disc jockey and club music artist for miles and miles around.

Vinyl sat down on the couch and pulled all the many red pillows up to her, closing her eyes tightly. If she could just pretend these pillows were ponies instead of sacks of feathers, it wouldn’t be any different than a normal party. Maybe, just maybe, the big fuzzy round pillow on her left could be Berry Punch, and the silky square one to the right was Colgate. She just—had—to imagine—

The bass dropped. Vinyl’s eyes shot open and blinked.

The swimming image of a group of ponies were moving to the music and chatting amongst each other. She had witnessed the scene so many times before that the image was permanently implanted in her brain. Vinyl blinked again, and the ponies became clearer. She could almost make out the colors of them all.

Grinning mischievously, Vinyl dashed across the room. She closed her eyes and pretended she was dancing through a thick of ponies. After emerging, she shot up the staircase back to her room.

Vinyl grabbed her favorite headphones and slunk them around her neck, then picked up her iconic purple shades from her nightstand and dramatically slid them on over her cherry-red eyes.

“I’m a genius,” she told herself coolly. “Genius.”

When she got back downstairs, Vinyl extracted a table from one of the closets and set it up behind the stereo in the kitchen. She pulled out more equipment from the closest, including a large rectangular controller, a microphone and a tangle of cords. Within a couple minutes, her entire setup was plugged in and ready to go.

“Welcome, my pones,” said Vinyl energetically through the microphone. “You know as they say, guys: when the cat’s away, the mice will—”

But just at that moment, when Vinyl was about to don her headphones, the doorbell rang weakly through the heavy thuds of the music. Vinyl dropped the microphone to the ground and stopped the music, her record comically scratching and plunging the house into instant silence. She clambered towards the front door and peered out of the blinds. Adjusting her hair furiously, she took off her shades and thrust them into the couch.

As casually as she could, Vinyl opened the door to a light-blue unicorn. He donned a black suit and dark grey shades, his spiky mane matching them. It was Neon Lights, her music partner.

“Vinyl! Wassup—”

Without thinking, Vinyl slammed the door in his face, panicky. A couple seconds later, feeling embarrassed, she opened the door a crack and peered out at the colt.

“Neon—what are you doing here?” hissed Vinyl, looking around worriedly, as though she was on the run from the law. “I’m busy—”

“Busy? With what?” asked Neon Lights, pushing up his glasses, his eyebrows raised. “I thought you were going down to Ponyville tonight?”

“Oh yeah, that! Um—yeah, I cancelled because of, um—,” Vinyl fidgeted with the doorknob, feeling sweat on her neck, “—I’m testing out my new speakers! Yeah man, I’ve got to break them in. You know how it is—”

Neon Lights craned his neck to look past her into the kitchen, where the two giant speakers stood next to all her equipment.

“The heck you talking about, I helped you buy those months ago,” said Neon Lights, pointing inside.

“Oh yeah, that’s right! Ha haaa…,” Vinyl gritted her teeth, trying to come up with a different excuse.

“V, what’s going on?” Neon grinned, noticing all the equipment. “You got all your stuff out—how come?” He tried to walk inside, but Vinyl blocked the doorway.

“NO!” screamed Vinyl, their horns colliding. Neon couldn’t come in. No..no…Octavia would kill her! She may have been blocks away, but somehow, she would know…Vinyl was sure of it...

“Whoa!” said Neon, backing away. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy for you!” said Vinyl. “But seriously, dude, you can’t come in.”

Neon Lights chuckled. “K, well why not? And don’t lie to me this time.”

“Because Tavi will kill me if I—”

Vinyl clapped a hoof over her mouth. She had let it slip.

“Octavia?” said Neon Lights, confused. “What do you mean—”

Thinking quickly, Vinyl kissed him on the mouth. A colt passing by whistled at them loudly.

Neon Lights looked truly confused now, as though Vinyl had smacked him in the face with the front door.

“V-Vinyl? What was that—”

“WHAT’S THAT?!” shouted Vinyl, pointing behind him, making the colt out in the street jump in alarm.

“What—”

SLAM. Vinyl actually did smack him with the door that time. She heard a body hit the ground, followed by “oh sheeit!” from the colt out in the street. Breathing quickly, Vinyl opened the door just a crack to see a knocked out Neon Lights lying face down in the pavement, his shades busted. Vinyl stepped out onto the street, feeling like she was breaching the boundaries of a prison. As quickly as she could, while the street was momentarily deserted (the colt had disappeared), Vinyl grabbed ahold of Neon Light’s tail in her mouth and dragged him behind a bush in front of the house. She repaired the glasses with her magic then crammed them clumsily back over his closed eyes. If she tucked in his limbs in just the right way, he could have been asleep.

Vinyl sprinted back inside and locked the door. Vinyl stood flat against the door, her chest heaving. “What had she done?”

Oh no, Vinyl wasn’t feeling remorse. She had slammed various objects into Neon Light’s face loads of times; one time she had knocked him out cold for several hours after sending Octavia’s two-thousand page encyclopedia of classical music into his face. Vinyl didn’t take kindly to ponies insulting her music. Sometimes she just hit him with things because she wanted to get his attention. Sometimes just for no reason at all. But then again…her loving abuse for Neon didn’t usually surmount to smacking him with a door. Which, as Vinyl noticed when she knocked the door twice, was made of some pretty hard wood. Very hard wood.

Get your mind out of the gutter, reader.

No, Vinyl wasn’t feeling remorse. She was feeling fear. Somepony had seen her. And Vinyl knew as well as anypony that the Canterlot guards didn’t take kindly to ponies assaulting each other on their doorsteps. They were going to be alerted, she knew it. Then they would take her away…away from the house…away from where she was sentenced…then that would be the end of her and Octavia’s friendship. Vinyl could always find another place to stay, but she would never find another Octavia.

Vinyl tried to shake the image out of her head. “No, dude, that’s not gonna happen,” she thought to herself. “Just relax…relax…”

Vinyl drew a series of deep breaths and returned to all fours. She was going to get through this night. Even if she was alone, there would always be music there to keep her company. The party must go on.

Soon, the music was blaring once again, and Vinyl was back in action.

Octavia could play her little cello and listen to her brainy orchestral music, but this was cloud nine. She read all the many knobs and buttons like a thoroughly studied road map, her mind intuitively knowing which way to go. Clumsy as pony hooves often were, operating a great assortment like this would have normally been next to impossible. But somehow through her mannerisms, she could strike the corner of her foreleg hoof on each button or dial and they would behave exactly how she wanted.

For a while, Vinyl was a free as a pegasus, her spirit soaring higher than a Wonderbolt. She was planning on a marathon, all the way up until Octavia returned home. But then came the whispers.

“You’re not meant to be alone, Vinyl…go out and play…”

Unconcerned, Vinyl turned up the music to drown out the serpent-like hiss breathing in her ears.

“They all miss you, lovely…all those ponies…so much you’re probably missing out on…”

Vinyl ignored the hiss and tried to concentrate on the music instead. “Chase me if you please…dununun but this love is just a breeze, dununun,” she sang along to the music. “Chase me if you pleeeease—”

“Fine…ignore me...enjoy your night alone in your own little celebration…freak…”

Vinyl felt her face become warm. She glanced toward the windows, hoping that nopony was secretly looking in at her. Oh how much they would laugh if they found out…

“How lame can you get…just stop embarrassing yourself already…Octavia would never do something like this…”

Vinyl fumbled for the volume and turned it up even louder. She could hear the windows rattle as she started turning more knobs. Once or twice, her grasp slipped, distorting the music the wrong way. She gritted her teeth at the horrid noise.

“Hahaha look at you, choking at your greatest talent…Octavia has never choked once on a performance…”

“Shut up!” said Vinyl, nervously turning up the volume even higher. With all her might, she tried to keep cool and return to her previous blissful state. But the whispers were persistent. Vinyl twitched, the voices irritating the inside of her ears like annoying streams of air.

Throwing down her headphones, the ground shaking from the intense power of the bass, Vinyl ducked into the closet and pulled out a metal box that looked like a huge flashlight.

“Strobe light!” yelled Vinyl into the phantom crowd. There were no more electrical outlets near her mixing station to plug in the strobe light, so she rushed to the kitchen. Unplugging the toaster, Vinyl thrust the plug into the wall.

Bright flashes illuminated the house in rhythm with the music. Vinyl turned off all the lights and instantly threw her whole body into a wild dance.

“Yeeeuh! Greatest—night—ever! Woohoo! Bring—it—on!”

The lights were flickering from the intense power usage. But Vinyl wasn’t paying attention; she had just pressed herself against a wall and was throwing her head like a windmill.

“Stop—swinging—I am—trying to—insult—you—”

The song was reaching its epic conclusion. Chaos through the form of synthesized instruments pounded the windows, which were on the brink of shattering. The strobe light was flashing at epileptic speeds. Vinyl’s glasses had been flung across the kitchen and into the sink. She had single-handedly (I’m sorry, but ‘single-hoofedly’ sounds terrible) reached the same level of noise and intensity as a rock concert.

“Screw this, I’m out!”

And along with the voices, so did the lights.

The house's power had reached the end of its tether.

T H R E E H O U R S R E M A I N

Hour Three: Static in the Attic

H O U R T H R E E

Vinyl was so caught up in dancing, it was several moments before she realized that everything had gone dark. When she finally came to, however, she laughed to herself at the scene.

“Hehehe, I guess the power just couldn’t handle my level of awesome!”

Vinyl wasn’t worried; she had blown the power many times before. In fact, blowing the power in Equestria was a sign of luck for a disc jockey. Rather than assume it was a faulty power supply, they believed it just meant a good party. Sometimes to achieve the best party, you had to blow a few circuit breakers.

“Don’t worry, folks! Vinyl’s on top of it!” she said happily, making her way through the ‘crowd’ in the darkness. “The party hasn’t even begun to—“

“Nice going, fuzzhead,” whispered a sudden voice.

“Hey what?” she said, turning her head to the voice as she was just about to descend a flight of stairs to the basement. She lit up her horn to illuminate the area, but nopony was there.

“Neon, is that you dude?” Vinyl said, sweat tingling her neck once more. She never saw him come in, and there was no way he had regained consciousness yet. She had hit him pretty hard.

Silence again.

“Look, dude, I’m sorry for knockin’ you out but I can explain—”

“Fuzzhead…”

“HEY now—” Vinyl whirled around so fast she nearly lost her balance. But no matter where her horn shined, she was met with an empty living room.

“I’ll show you fuzzhead you gimpy little mule now COME OUT!” she yelled into the abyss.

Vinyl’s heart was thumping as silence reigned throughout the home. Finally, shaking it off, Vinyl hurried down the basement stairs to reset the power.

“Fuzzhead…hah, can’t hide with the lights on,” she mumbled to herself as she descended the stairs. “Muahahaha…”

Vinyl’s hooves met concrete as she stepped into the basement, which was almost pitch black. Stepping around baskets of laundry, (all of it was Octavia’s; Vinyl owned virtually no amount of clothing) Vinyl laughed to herself in a rather creepy tone as she approached the circuit box.

“Nopony’s gonna outsmart the Scratch…nopony…hehehehe…”

Vinyl magicked open the door to the box and flipped the breaker all the way off, to reset it. She then flipped the switch back to the ‘ON’ position, closed the door, and proceeded to climb the stairs again.

“Wait a minute…” she said, noticing that the landing above was still as dark as before. “Must not have waited long enough…”

Shrugging off her mistake, she returned to the circuit breaker box and reset the power once more. She climbed on top of the washing machine and waited for a full minute.

“And there we go,” Vinyl whispered a minute later, flipping the switch back to its ‘ON’ position.

Yet, once again, Vinyl noticed the power had still not returned.

“Oh so that’s how it’s going to be, is it?” said Vinyl, gearing up for a challenge.

She shot a beam of electric blue light from her horn toward the circuit box, making the lights above her flicker very briefly.

“How’d you like that, you stupid circuit box? Take some more!”

Vinyl hit the box with an even more powerful beam of magic, making the lights above her flash fully. But as quick as they came on, with a faint pop, they returned to darkness.

“Such a fool…thought you could get rid of me…”

“What?” said Vinyl, panic beginning to seep into her mind. She tripped over a laundry basket and fell to the group, catapulting a basket of Octavia’s clothes onto her.

“This can’t be happening,” she said, clutching her head underneath the pile of laundry. Where were these voices coming from? They seemed so real…like they were whispering from the mouth of a pony right next to her. It was like she was going crazy…no way, Vinyl Scratch wasn’t a lunatic…but the voices…what was going on?

Shaking slightly, Vinyl emerged from the pile and tried once again to restore the electricity. But only darkness remained.

Vinyl could feel her heartbeat increasing in pace as she tried to think of another solution.

“It’s just the power, dude,” she said quietly to herself, the shaking now reaching her vocal cords. She crawled up the stairs, into the living room, then fell onto the L-shaped couch.

“It’s just the power, folks!” she said, forcing a very trembling laugh. Don’t you worry, I’ll figure it out! I’m still in control! Still...still in control...,” she ended in a terrified whisper.

“No, Fuzzhead. Octavia is in control…”

“GyaaaAH SHUT UP!” screamed Vinyl, flying off the couch. She shot a jet of electric light, green this time, out of her horn toward the voice in panic. But immediately after casting the spell she knew she had made a terrible mistake; as though everything had been reduced to slow motion, Vinyl watched horrifically as the spell ricocheted off the edge of the coffee table and directly into her heap of equipment.

Her beautiful turntable, the speakers, the controller—everything—were blasted into pieces. Shards of plastic, metal and glass flew everywhere, narrowly missing Vinyl as she sheltered her face. The bits and pieces sparked with electricity, the remnants of the green spell still within them.

Vinyl fell to all four knees.

The most profound silence yet ringed through the house. A dim light cast its grim glow on the pile below, giving it the effect that a murder had just taken place. But it was more than a murder; it was a massacre. Each and every piece was an individual body. What she was looking at was a battlefield. A battlefield that had just been hit by a nuclear bomb.

Vinyl’s mouth hung agape in shock, but no words escaped. She was simply at a loss for words. First she had been grounded, then the power had gone out, and now she had—Vinyl tried to swallow a lump in her throat—destroyed—she twitched—destroyed her equipment!

“You know you deserve it…”

“No, man. No…,” Vinyl said, crawling to her hooves, trying to shut out the static of madness that was trying to overcome her. She crawled toward the kitchen sink, not daring to look down at the mess of pieces, and turned on the water. She had to wake herself up.

“This is a nightmare. I gotta wake up. Come on, wake up!” she said as she stuck her head under the cold water. She splashed it in her face desperately.

“Got—to wake—up. Got—to—wake—”

She fell from the sink dramatically and onto the floor, tears now joining the cold water dripping down her face.

“Party’s over, everyone,” she sobbed quietly. Vinyl Scratch, the mighty disc jockey, celebrity and party host of the highest prestige, was reduced to the fetal position. And nopony was there to care.

▒ ▒ ▒

“What’s the matter now?” said Sledge.

It was intermission. Many ponies were now filing out of the main theater into the hallways to stretch their legs. Sledge was complementing Octavia’s mane for the seventeenth time when she suddenly inhaled a sharp breath of air and stopped dead in her tracks.

She didn’t know why, but Octavia had a sudden urge to run from the building. Something wasn’t right.

“Did I offend you, m’lady? Oh no, please forgive me, I just—”

“No, you’re fine, handsome,” said Octavia, looking around. I just need to…use the restroom. Be right back—”

Octavia cantered away towards a set of doors far down the hall.

“…Handsome, huh?” said Sledge, grinning stupidly.

Just before reaching a long line of mares outside the female restroom, Octavia ducked behind a group of ponies and pushed open an outside glass door. A couple fiercely embraced with each other broke apart awkwardly as Octavia hurried past, but she paid them no attention. After a few minutes, she reached an overlook, which, thankfully, was deserted.

“Oh you’re such rubbish, Octavia,” she said to herself, finding a metal railing and putting her front two forelegs onto it. Far below, she could see the forests of Everfree and the tiny pinprick lights of Ponyville.

She was a monster, making Vinyl stay home all alone while she went out and everypony else had fun. A big, loud and (although hard to believe) fun party was going on in Ponyville, but Vinyl wasn’t there to be a part of it. Okay, so Vinyl had upset her far too many times than she would have liked, but she couldn’t stand being the bad pony. She could have at least allowed her a friend to keep her company…or three…

Octavia remained there for several minutes, mulling everything over until the sound of a canter of hooves met her ears.

“’Scuse me, ma’am,” said a deep voice approaching her. A couple of royal guards, fully suited, came up to meet her.

“Yyyes, gentlecolts?” said Octavia, stepping back onto the ground and facing them quizzically. Were they coming to punish her for imprisoning Vinyl?

“Sorry to disturb, but we received an alert that a pony was assaulted on Lower Canterlot.”

Octavia gasped.

“We’ve yet to capture them, so we’re advising wandering ponies even up here in Upper Canterlot to remain indoors until we do.”

“Oh my—well,” best of luck to you stallions,” she said, relieved. “I hope you find that ruffian,” said Octavia, nodding.

“Oh we will, don’t you worry, ma’am. Are you attending the play at the royal theater tonight?”

“Yes, the play just got let out for intermission.”

“Mind if we escort you back?”

“Not at all!”

When they returned to the area of glass doors right outside the hallway, (the fervent couple was nowhere to be seen) Octavia thanked the guards and turned to them with a question.

“Um—excuse me, sorry, but who did the assailant look like?”

“Our report said it was a white unicorn with a blue mane, but they weren’t positive on the mane color. I would keep an eye out for such a pony just in case.”

Octavia thought immediately of Vinyl, but dismissed the thought just as quickly. Vinyl may have been an irresponsible friend, but she wasn’t a criminal. Instead, she nodded in thanks and bade them farewell.

“Miss Octavia, intermission is just about over,” said Sledge as Octavia returned to the hallway. “Where have you been?”

“Oh—um…the other restrooms just across the way. These were much too crowded.”

“Oh, right, don’t worry, I understand,” said Sledge, remembering how easy stallions had it compared to mares when it came to restrooms. “Shall we return?”

“To the what? Oh—oh yes—of course,” said Octavia, not thinking straight. The subject of the assault was still on her mind.

When they returned to their positions in the theater, the lights dimmed once again and curtains opened to reveal a graveyard on set.

Just before the intermission, a character had been murdered with a knife, and now the funeral was taking place. Octavia felt even worse than she did during intermission, for she felt like she was being mocked. Although she had never brandished a knife for anything except for cutting endless amounts of Vinyl’s sandwiches, she could have stabbed her for the way she felt. Swallowing the guilt as best as she could, she turned to Sledge.

“So I heard something interesting…,” whispered Octavia as the act began. Sledge leaned in to listen.

Octavia told him about what the Canterlot guards had told her, but took care to make it sound like she had overheard it in the restroom.

To Octavia’s surprise, Sledge wasn’t fazed by the news at all.

“Yup, we get stuff like that all the time in Canterlot. My fellow guards have it taken care of.”

Octavia, however, didn’t feel altogether reassured. Something still seemed to be wrong. Her thoughts kept jumping to Vinyl, but she kept denying them. She knew five ponies off the top of her head that had white fur and blue manes, one of which lived down the street from her. It was just too unlikely.

But she still felt horrible about what she had done. She kept glancing toward the exit, tapping a hoof on the ground indecisively.

“You’re not gonna leave, are you?” whispered Sledge as though he could read her thoughts.

Clang went the heavy sound of a bell on stage. A coffin was lowering into the floor, while a group of ponies dressed in black mourned around it.

“Woe is us! How could it be? Such a scourge upon our family!” cried out an actress with a curly red mane.

Octavia didn’t answer.

“Listen, I’m a royal guard—”

“No, really?” thought Octavia.

“—And as royal guards, we have to enforce the law. We cannot afford to be pushovers.” Octavia’s ears perked up.

“Excuse me, sir, I am not a pushover,” she said, loud enough to make the row behind look down at them. Sledge was shocked by her offended look.

“No of course not, my good lady!” he said, smiling up at the row to assure them all was well. “All I’m saying,” he added, reducing his voice back to a whisper, “is to get a point across, sometimes you have to force it. Which is why they call it enforcing.”

“Yes, of course, but…,” Octavia knew it was true, but she could have dealt with Vinyl with less anger. That wasn’t who she was.

“Please, I insist you stay,” said Sledge, putting a hoof gently on her shoulder. “The final two acts are worth staying for. You mustn’t miss them, Octavia.”

“Well…,” Octavia mulled the whole situation over again and sighed.

“It would be rude of me to leave…”

“She’ll be just fine, I promise. Nopony ever died from staying home on a Friday night you know. Unless you live in a volcano.”

Octavia giggled. “True.”

They settled back into a casual commentary on the play, Octavia’s thoughts of Vinyl once again fleeing from her mind. Concluding the scene was a flock of paper crows, enchanted to fly by themselves across the stage, and the sounds of the heavy bells once again. The scene was hauntingly pretty, albeit disturbing.

Clang.

▒ ▒ ▒

Bing!

Vinyl’s head turned sharply towards the front door at the sound of the doorbell. It felt like she had been on the kitchen floor for years. Assuming the doorbell wasn’t another figment of her imagination, she carefully walked over toward the window to see who was outside.

Peering out of the blinds, she was met with an unexpected sight: no less than eight Canterlot guards, two of which were at the front door.

“They really must not have anything better to do tonight,” she said, annoyed. She was just about to hurry and open the front door when she heard one of them speak.

“They found Mr. Lights’ body in these bushes right here. If I’m not mistaken, this is where she lives. Miss Scratch would also fit the description.”

“Vinyl Scratch? The musician?”

“I can’t believe it either. Royal Guards!”

The sound of the doorbell rang through the house again. Vinyl’s blood went cold. Her worst fears had been confirmed.

“ROYAL GUARDS!” the guard shouted, pounding on the locked door. Vinyl’s heart was pounding just as loud in her ears. “We have a warrant for your arrest!”

Vinyl was frozen to the spot, unable to fathom why she was experiencing such extreme misfortune. She couldn’t be arrested! Not now! Octavia would come home to not just a mess, but no power and an imprisoned roommate! If that wasn’t grounds to kick her out forever, she didn’t know what was!

“THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING!”

No, they weren’t going to capture her. Her reputation would be destroyed. Her life would be over. Nope.

“Oh man—oh man—what am I gonna do—oh man—” Gasped Vinyl, sprinting across the living room and back down the basement stairs. Nope. Adrenaline, fear and the worst cold chill she had ever felt was rushing through her body like the rapids of a river. Nope. She could hear the continued pounding on the front door upstairs, following by what sounded like even more hoof steps of other guards. Nope. Nope Nope.

“Where’migonna hide where’migonna hide,” she gasped, lightning the darkness with her horn. Apart from the washer and dryer, all she could see was a bunch of shelves, a door leading to a pantry and the window to a window well.

Escape. Was the first thought that came to her mind when she saw the window well, but then she remembered Octavia.

“No dude…must not escape…gotta hide…”

She wrenched open the door to the pantry, looked around inside, but closed it again.

“Nope…”

Vinyl considered just crawling into the window well and hoping that the darkness would conceal her, but as she drew nearer a web full of spiders met the light from her horn.

“Ugh—way sketchy—no way…”

Vinyl was just about to consider running all the way upstairs to her room when she heard the front door burst open and the shouts of guards thundering through the house.

With only a split second’s worth of thinking, Vinyl wrenched open the door of the dryer, pulled out a few of Octavia’s damp dresses, and then stuffed herself into it. She magicked the dresses back into the dryer to conceal her body and shut the door, praying that none of the guards had heard her. And then she waited.

A second passed.

Two seconds.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

After about a minute, Vinyl’s heart skipped a beat as she heard the sound of hoofsteps descend the staircase.

“While we search down here, let’s see if we can restore the power,” said a deep voice. Vinyl could just barely see the glow of flashlights coming from outside the dryer. If she would have decided to push the spider aside and hide in the window well, they for sure would have found her. The smallest of triumphs roared in her chest at her wise decision. Well, if baby kittens with speech impediments counted as roars.

“Nope, nothin’,” said a guard. “Smart pony, blowin’ the power to make it hard for us to find her. Too bad she don’t know we got lightsticks.”

“…They’re called flashlights, Dimbus,” said the other guard.

“It’s a metal thing shaped like a stick that shines light. It’s a lightstick.”

“Whatever. Shine your ‘light stick’ under those shelves.”

“K…just did. Seein’ just a bunch of cement. Man this floor is clean.”

“I know, it’s like…,” Vinyl could heard the first guard bend down, “somepony scrubbed it all clean.”

“Heh, freak,” said Dimbus. Vinyl felt a hot surge of anger. Nopony talked to Tavi like that…well, except her…

Vinyl nearly blew her cover as she moved in an attempt to escape the dryer. Thankfully, a guard from upstairs had shouted at the exact same time the dryer squeaked as she moved inside of it.

“She’s not up here, Cloud Scraper!” shouted a horribly gruff voice. “Any luck down there with you and Dimbus?”

“Not yet, sir!” said Cloud Scraper. “She may have fled!”

“Maybe. But did you look everywhere? She’s not that big. Check the washer and dryer!”

Vinyl’s heart stopped as she heard a hoof grasp the dryer door.

T W O H O U R S R E M A I N

Hour Four: The Descent

H O U R F O U R

The dryer door opened and Vinyl saw light flow into the dryer and through the stitches of the thin fabric. This was the end. She, the great Vinyl Scratch, had just been cornered, like a defenseless little mouse in the wake of a clowder of cats. Her heart was pounding in her ears, sounding as though it was trying to explode out of her chest. Either she was going to be thrown in jail or die of a heart attack tonight. Honestly, she would have gone with the latter.

“Well, well, well,” said the voice of Cloud Scraper. “Boss, come take a look at this!”

Vinyl gritted her teeth and closed her eyes, waiting for them to yank her out by the rear ankles. The sound of a heavy set of hooves came down the stairs and across the concrete floor.

“Celestia this place is a mess. What is it—”

The boss guard gasped in his actually-not-so-horrible gasp. “Is that…tissue taffeta?” Vinyl felt him yank one of the damp dresses out of the dryer.

“I couldn’t believe it either, sir,” said Cloud Scraper, who sounded legitimately astounded.

“Wait…what?” thought Vinyl, still trying to process what was transpiring at the moment. Were they talking about Octavia’s dress?

“You never machine wash tissue taffeta! Let alone dry it!” exclaimed the boss. He ran his hooves over the fabric, which was only slightly damaged, but essentially ruined. “I can’t believe it wasn’t shredded to pieces!”

“Just look at the quality,” said Cloud Scraper. “This is the kind of stuff bridal gowns are made out of. My wife would have killed me if I tried to machine wash such a fabric.”

“Likewise.”

“You have GOT to be kidding me.”

“Two Ton!” shouted the boss suddenly, making Vinyl jump, nearly giving away her hiding spot for a second time.

A heavy canter came from the floor above. It sounded like anvils were being repeatedly dropped on the ground.

“Boss?” said a slow voice.

“Who did you say resides here with Miss Scratch?”

“Why Octavia the cellist of course,” said Two-Ton as he descended the stairs to join the commotion. His voice was slow, but dignified, almost like a butler. If Vinyl wasn’t so fearful for her life, she would have been fascinated. Never in her life had she heard the Canterlot guards speak more than two words.

“Well if I’m not mistaken, these belong to her,” said the boss, who was still running the fabric over in his hooves gently. “A bit too classical for a disc jockey.”

“Being so careless with this kind of fabric is a crime in itself,” said Cloud Scraper. The boss nodded in agreement.

Vinyl’s insides writhed with guilt. Because she was busy getting ready for the evening, Octavia had actually asked Vinyl to take her dresses into the dry cleaners earlier the same day. Because Octavia needed one of the dresses tomorrow for a formal party, and the fact the dry cleaners were closed on Saturday, Vinyl had thrown the dresses in the washing machine in haste while Octavia was out in town. Vinyl had been so caught up in her own plans for the evening, she had completely forgot. How could she be so stupid?

“Um, sir?” said Dimbus, speaking up. “I don’t mean to interrupt ya, but our mission…?”

The boss stopped lamenting at once.

“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat loudly. “Yes—” He closed the dryer door, making Vinyl’s heart leap hopefully.

“STATUS REPORT!” he boomed, making even the other guards jump. Vinyl could hear the cantering of hooves from all over the house. Within a minute, every single one of the eight, metal plated Canterlot guards were compiled in the basement.

“Upstairs?” said the boss loudly.

“All clear, unfortunately, sir,” said a guard.

“Ground level?”

“Nothing, boss,” said another.

“Closets?”

“Clear as well sir!” said Two-Ton.

The boss turned dangerously toward Cloud Scraper and Dimbus. They gulped in unison.

“And the basement?” he said, squinting his eyes.

They hesitated. Dimbus elbowed Cloud Scraper.

“You’re the second in command, you tell ‘im,” he muttered. Cloud Scraper rolled his eyes.

“Lucky me,” he said sarcastically.

Every guard was a statue, just waiting for the boss to explode in fury. Vinyl was silently laughing to herself, amused by her final good turn of luck.

Cloud Scraper sighed. “All clear, sir,” he mumbled finally, not looking the boss in the eye.

A silence, and then…

THUD went the heavy sound of wood against armor. Immediately after, Vinyl heard a large body fall to the floor. A pin drop could have been heard.

“Let Cloud Scraper’s example be a lesson to you lot,” growled the boss. “We—don’t—fail—ever! Do you know what I have to report to the higher-ups now? The criminal has outsmarted us! A mere unicorn! I WILL NOT BE MADE A FOOL OF!”

Vinyl heard a loud clang of metal. Somepony had just been thrown into the washer beside her.

“Understood?” he hissed.

“Understood!” the remaining guards shouted.

“Two-Ton!” shouted the boss at the vast guard, who raised his head intelligently.

“Sir.”

“You’re second in command now. Arrest the other pony.”

Two Ton’s eyes flickered in confusion.

“But sir, we can’t arrest Miss Octavia. She’s committed no—”

“Crimes?” said the boss, who held up the ruined dress dramatically, his voice higher than normal again. “I hail from a family of tailors, sailors and blacksmiths. A ruined product is as good as a ruined soul. As my former second in command said, it is a crime.

WHAT?! Screamed Vinyl in her mind. They wouldn’t dare…

Two Ton acted as though he was going to argue, but nodded in agreement. “Right.”

“SECURE THE PERIMETER!” boomed the boss. The guards all scrambled up the basement stairs, flashlights waving about. As they left, the boss picked up the dress one last time and thrust it back in the dryer.”

“Cellist…tch, useless mule,” he spat in disgust.

“Tavi…a use…useless…WHAT DID HE SAY?”

And at that, Vinyl had finally reached her breaking point. Glass shattered inside her mind, the pieces cutting through her dendrites and sending a shockwave throughout her body. All of it—the denial, the anger, the sadness, the guilt, the fear—had boiled over the kettle. Nopony, not even Vinyl herself had ever uttered such an insult to her friend. On her worst days, she had said some pretty hurtful things. But this…this transcended.

Whether it had been because of Vinyl’s extreme anger, or just a matter of coincidence, a sharp bink and the surge of power sounded from above, shedding light once more into the house. The boss looked up and smiled.

“Oh would you look at that—”

KABOOM!

The dryer door exploded off its hinges as Vinyl shot out of it like a bullet. The boss, a squat and stocky pegasus in silver armor, wasn’t even quick enough to react.

“SECURE THIS!”

Vinyl had punched the boss guard so hard, he soared up the flight of stairs and crashed into the opposing wall of the main room. Vinyl rocketed up the steps after him, finding herself face to face with every single one of the remaining six guards. Like the boss, they had all frozen in their tracks.

“G-GET HER!” roared the boss, who was lying in a heap underneath a pile of splinted wood from a closet door. At once, the guards drew out their spears. Vinyl flung her hair out of her eyes and grinned devilishly at them.

“You heard the dude. Come at me. COME AT ME!” yelled a cross-eyed Vinyl.

And it started. At once, three of the unnamed guards ran straight at her, ready to take Vinyl down to the floor. But with the spring of a mountain lion, Vinyl had cleared all of their heads and landed in front of the bathroom door. Vinyl shot a beam of blue light toward the stereo inside the bathroom’s medicine cabinet. A loud crackle of static came from a set of speakers stationed at every corner in the living room ceiling. The static was so loud, the guards aimed their spears toward them, expecting them to attack (they weren’t all that bright to begin with). But instead, the same insanely fast rock song Vinyl had been listening to in the bathroom earlier began filling the room.

“Battle music,” chuckled a stout blue pegasus.

“Oh this one takes me back—”

“WHAT ARE YOU BLITERHING IDIOTS WAITING FOR? DOWN HER!” roared the boss, who was still trying to emerge from the pile of wood. The three guards leaped into action once more, charging straight at Vinyl side by side.

In counter, Vinyl shot a beam of orange from her horn and downed the nearest guard, then used his momentarily grounded body as a platform to leap up between the other two. While passing through the air between them, Vinyl kicked them in the sides of the head with her hind legs, flinging them sideways.

Two Ton, Dimbus and a third guard, the three that hadn’t been struck yet, sprang into action at once. As heavy as a rhinoceros, but eight times as agile, Two-Ton zigzagged toward Vinyl, holding his stick like a fighting staff. Just barely dodging a heavy blow to the stomach, Vinyl rolled to the side and shot another beam of orange light up toward his face, which missed. A pile of wood and drywall fell from the ceiling with the resounding explosion, knocking Dimbus to the floor.

Destroy them! Destroy them allllllllll hahahaha!

By this time, the initial three pegasi had already gained their bearings and advanced on Vinyl once more.

“SHE’S JUST—A—UNICORN!” screamed the boss pathetically. Vinyl was pleased to see that his front two legs had been lodged in crevices in the wood. He was attempting to kick them free, but making little progress.

“Hahahahahahahaha!” laughed Vinyl maniacally, continuing to speed around the armored guards and evade them. A random spear came flying through the air past her, but bounced off the armor of another guard. Once or twice, a hoof outstretched to trip or grab a hold of her, but all attempts were useless. They may have had brute strength, but Vinyl had speed. And magic. There was always that.

But even with speed, magic and the fury of a starving cerebrus on her side, several minutes later, Vinyl wasn’t quick enough to notice a large shadow had just loomed behind her.

“Hahahaha! Missed me again, you stupid fu—”

WHUP! Vinyl was knocked to the floor from a heavy blow from the back of the head. Seeing stars, Vinyl rolled around on the floor just in time to catch a glimpse of the tallest pegasus she had ever seen in her entire life.

What the?

“Cloud Scraper!” yelled the boss, just about free. “You’ve been promoted! Detain her!”

“On it, boss,” said Cloud Scraper, reaching into his armor for some hoofcuffs. He wasn’t quite the height of Princess Celestia, but he had Luna beat for sure.

As the huge pegasus knelt down on her back, locking her hooves together, she could see the blurry forms of the other guards limping over to the them, breathing angrily.

With the help of Two-Ton, the boss had finally broke free of his wooden prison and hobbled over.

Get off of me you overgrown meatwheel! I was just getting started!

“Eight trained, armed, metal plated royal pegasus guards. One stupid little suburban unicorn,” said the boss, sneering. “I’ll admit, you put up a good fight. I thought for a fleeting second we were in trouble, I did. But justice always prevails in the end. Cloud Scraper, give her the rights.”

Cloud Scraper cleared his throat loudly. Oh how she wanted to punch that smug little grin.

“You have the right to remain silent,” said Cloud Scraper, tightening the second pair of hoofcuffs. Vinyl squirmed violently and emitted a spell, but missed entirely.

Hold still, you big-headed buggernauts.

“Clamp her horn, Dimbus,” said the boss. A good natured but homely pegasus with a stubble took out a strange metal cone-shaped object with four small bolts at the base. Dimbus set it over her horn and twisted the bolts until Vinyl could feel them pressing uncomfortably against her horn. She tried to emit another spell in retaliation, but the moment she geared up to use her magic, she felt it suck back into her like a sneeze.

“Technology these days, eh?” said Two-Ton, whose upper lip was bleeding. “You wouldn’t imagine the struggle before these things. Negates all magic. Invented by yours truly.”

Oh I’ll show you the REAL use of that invention, pal. I’ll shove it right up your—”

But before she could finish her inappropriate insults, a knock came from the door.

“Answer it, but be cautious,” said the boss. A guard walked over to the door and peered out the window. In haste, he flung it open.

“P-princess Luna?”

And sure enough, the princess of the night herself was standing on the threshold. She had been smiling, but her smile vanished instantly when she saw the sight before her.

The boss looked from his guards to Luna, who looked from Vinyl to the guards. Luna then scanned the enormous mess, the cracked ceiling and then finally back to Vinyl. Vinyl, flat on the ground, still cross-eyed, looked from Luna to Luna, to Luna and Luna, then back to Luna.

“Do you understand these rights as I have read them to…” trailed off Cloud Scraper, being the last to notice who was standing in the doorway. Blinking nervously, he rose off Vinyl at once and joined the other seven in a bow.

Several moments passed. A cricket was chirping out in the bushes. Somewhere down the street, a door closed.

“Um…,” began Luna awkwardly. “Evening, everypony.”

“Evening, your majesty,” everypony replied.

“The power is out in all of Canterlot. Except…for this home, which we found exceedingly odd. Care to explain?”

Dimbus peered out a window into the city. Every last source of electric light had vanished.

“’Oly ‘orsehoes, she’s right!”

“What’s been going on here? Why is Vinyl Scratch bound on the floor?”

“She committed assault, your majesty,” said the boss, still on his front two knees. “There was a struggle.”

“I can see that. Assault? How so?”

“Our reports said that—”

“I slammed a door in my friend’s face,” grunted Vinyl, laying pitifully on her side. “It knocked him out.”

“I…see,” said Luna, who was evidently trying not to laugh. "Was it Neon Lights again?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“You do realize that isn’t healthy for a pony’s head?”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Please don’t do it again.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Thank you.”

Princess Luna magicked the restraints off Vinyl at once. Vinyl glared angrily at the guard nearest her, who looked away uneasily.

Oh if she could just beat them all one last time…

“B-b-but—Princess Luna—” stammered the boss.

“Please, call me your majesty,” said Luna.

“Yes, your majesty.”

“You will leave this home.”

“But a crime has been committed! You can’t allow—”

“I’m a ruler of Equestria. Don’t tell me what I can and cannot do.”

“Y—yes, your majesty,” said the boss, gritting his teeth.

“You will not include this on her record.”

“Yes, your majesty,” said the boss, gritting them again.

“You will stop targeting suburban disc jockeys by sending an irrational amount of guards to their home and punishing them for actions that don’t warrant being arrested.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Boss, what about arresting the other—,” began Dimbus, but the boss shot him a dirty look to shut him up.

“Another arrest?” questioned Luna, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s…nothing, your majesty,” said the boss with great effort.

Luna eyed him suspiciously.

“Rrright. Thimble (Was that really his name? Haha!), you are relieved of duty tonight. And the rest of you—”

Luna eyed the remaining seven.

“Return to your stations, battalion.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

One by one, the guards filed out of the house, leaving Vinyl alone with Princess Luna, who turned to her. Vinyl was expecting a scolding.

“ETA for your next album?”

“Oh, uh…,” said Vinyl in surprise, “October, probably.” She rubbed her head where Cloud Scraper had struck her.

“Good. In the meantime, stay out of trouble please. I’m going to advise my sister to hold a meeting tomorrow to discuss this city’s law enforcement system.”

“Yes, your majesty.”

“Please, call me Luna.”

“Thank you, Luna.”

“Good night!” she smiled.

Luna took off into the night sky, leaving Vinyl to her fate. She closed the door and turned back toward the catastrophic mess.

She began to laugh uncontrollably. It was ridiculous! Everything that had transpired tonight was so beyond normal reality, it was a complete joke.

“Octavia’s going to kill meeheehee!” she cackled, pointing at the huge hole in the ceiling. “And the closet door—bahahaha!” She exclaimed, noticing the destroyed wood. “I might as well pack my bags now!”

Vinyl crawled over to the immense pile that was once her turntable. She rolled around in the pieces like they were a field of daises.

“Thank you all for coming tonight!” she yelled, throwing pieces into the air. “Back soon you next year!”

Vinyl grabbed the remote, which was still in one piece. She broke it in half over her head. “There! All put away!”

As the clock on the wall ticked, rounding on 11 o’clock, Vinyl twitched on the ground, mimicking the noise. Every sixty seconds she completed a whole circle. It was all hilarious! Everything! And she wasn’t even dreaming! But who cared what reality—maybe reality was nothing. It was all up to her, because nothing else mattered in the world now.

She half yawned, half giggled again.

“I wonder what it would be like to arrest a house...” Vinyl imagined suddenly a pair of handcuffs the size of a sea serpent wrapping themselves around their house. She laughed loudly. Even the dumbest thought was comedic gold.

Vinyl yawned again. She arose from the ground and made her way over to the couch, which was quite comfortable. A film of dust lay upon the pillows. She kicked them all out of the way and made a mini fort out of the cushions. She crawled inside and closed her eyes, still snickering to herself.

“Hehehehehehehehe…”

When Vinyl opened her eyes, what seemed to be just seconds later, a soft white light was filling the room. Vinyl rose from what wasn’t the couch she was on moments ago, but a thin grid carpet. Vinyl blinked her eyes and beheld a tiny square room, lined with glass walls and a handsome wood ceiling. A soft humming noise was coming from outside the room, as well as the distant drone of voices. Vinyl studied the tiny room in amazement until…

Ding!

Vinyl whirled around to the noise and saw a long column of square buttons next to a double door. Above the door was the number 7.

As though she knew exactly what she was doing, she pushed the bottommost button on the column and the elevator began to move.

Calming piano music was playing overhead through a single speaker as the elevator fell slowly in altitude.

When the elevator stopped, the doors opened to reveal an endless grassy field and a bright blue sky. Entirely confused, but fascinated, Vinyl left the elevator, which vanished at once upon her exit. A warm breeze brushed her hair, tickling her face.

Far off in the distance were countless windmills, as tall as skyscrapers. Propellers as long as football fields spun at different speeds. Vinyl was about to set out towards them when she turned an ear toward the cloudless blue sky. The same slow, simple, cheery piano sonata was drifting through the air, its origin unknown. Shrugging, Vinyl continued toward the windmills.

The field vaguely reminded her of the park that Octavia used to take Vinyl to. Vinyl hated them. She didn’t mind sunshine, nor was she against parks, but long, boring walks weren’t her cup of tea. Thankfully, though, she finally succeeded by getting Octavia to quit asking her to go, for she was running out of excuses.

Bluebirds as tiny as moths were zooming blissfully around her, chattering amongst each other. For such tiny things, their chirping blocked out the music entirely. Vinyl growled in annoyance.

“Shut up, I’m trying to hear the music!” she said angrily, swatting at the birds. Instantly, they all grew many times in size, now the size of regular bluebirds. One landed on the grass and chirped at her reproachfully. Unfazed by this, Vinyl cantered past them.

Her canter became a gallop as the bluebirds pursued her, singing their springy songs. Vinyl roared insults back at them until the bluebirds became the size of albatrosses. Before she knew it, a large wing had knocked her to the ground.

The bluebirds circled like vultures above her, laughing at Vinyl’s misfortune.

“I’ve gone through enough already! Gimme a break, will ya?!” she screamed at them, her vision swimming with stars.

The birds had now swelled to the size of dragons. With the blink of an eye, they had dropped their fluffy blue feathers and had replaced them with shiny grey scales. Vinyl got back to her hooves carefully and tried to focus on the music, not looking at the sky.

“Gotta get home…gotta get home…,” she thought, ignoring the great shadows moving through the grass. “Must beat Tavi…”

The thought had barely escaped her mind when one of the huge grey dragons slammed to the ground. Smart purple eyes, charcoal scales and even a pink bowtie, a dragon with the face of Octavia was leering back at her.

“MY NAME IS OCTAVIA!”

Before Vinyl could react, two rows of razor sharp teeth had swallowed her whole and she fell into darkness. Her silent screams rang helplessly until…

“Oof!” She had hit solid ground. But rather than the belly of a dragon, Vinyl was once again in the elevator. Shaking, Vinyl scrambled to her hooves and slammed her hoof into the topmost button. She wanted to put as much distance between her and those…things as possible.

The elevator clunked into motion, knocking Vinyl to the floor once again. The floor was no longer carpet, but stainless steel. The glass on the walls had cracked and the piano sonata had gone. All that could be heard was the mechanical whirrrrrrr of the elevator.

What seemed like way too short of a time to rise eighty-five floors, the number above the double doors flashed its highest number. When the doors opened, Vinyl hid behind the wall of the elevator and peered out into the landing, checking for pony-dragon hybrids. When none were found, Vinyl stepped out.

“Whoa…”

Vinyl was standing in a gigantic circular room with paintings lining the walls. A shiny black floor surrounded an immense blue carpet, also circular, in the center of the room. The pattern of her hooves echoed off the walls while she scanned the large room. The room reminded her vaguely of a horrible art gallery Octavia had once took her to, but ten times as wide.

A gigantic mechanical arm protruded from the high ceiling when Vinyl reached the carpet, causing her to stumble in surprise. She eyed the arm warily as it grew in length, surpassing forty feet at least. When the arm had stopped growing, five fingers the length of yardsticks flexed themselves then beckoned to her. Vinyl backed away slowly.

“Get lost!” she yelled, still looking for the elevator. But like in the green field, the evevator seemed to have completely vanished. No doors lined the walls, nor did any windows. Just countless, boring, stupid old paintings!

The robot arm made a crude gesture and spun away from her. “Yeah? Well f—”

A mechanical noise.

“—you too, buddy!” she hollered back.

The robot took no notice to this, but curled its long fingers into a point and descended its hand. When the pointer finger touched the floor, Vinyl felt the whole floor shift, knocking her to the ground. Before she could regain her stance, the entire room began to move. It was a few moments of tumbling and stumbling before Vinyl knew what was going on. Hardly able to believe it, she looked down at the carpet, where she saw giant looping letters amidst a warm sunset design with a cello fading into it.

“Pulling—Heartstrings?” spat Vinyl, disgusted. “How—on earth—oof—do I—get out of—ouch—here?”

The moody cello strings that were starting to play around her were giving her a sickly feeling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the fact she was spinning as fast as a carnival ride. Vinyl galloped, or more or less rolled, to the edge of the great circular room where the giant spinning vinyl disc didn’t reach. When she finally regained her stance, Vinyl searched frantically for a door. Heck, even a window would do. She just had to escape the sentimental madness!

Not helping the cause in the slightest, Vinyl took notice of the nearest painting in front of her. A pony was sitting alone on a park bench, amidst a great expanse of grass, while a depressing sheet of rain fell upon her parasol. The pony’s head was turned, but a long charcoal mane curling around her neck sparked a speck of curiosity in Vinyl. But too annoyed by the music to give the thought a second pass, Vinyl took off along the wall. She had no idea how she was going to get home, but if she could just leave this wretched place…

“Oh what the—” jumped Vinyl, as her eyes caught a painting of a shocking pink room. She couldn’t help but stare dumbstruck at what was quite possibly the ugliest bedroom she had ever seen. Everything—and quite literally everything—was pink. The bed, the canopy, the curtains, the furniture, the walls…it was like staring at an orphanage that just burst into flames. It was so horrible, but she just couldn’t look away. Until—

“—Wait…no way…how the—?”

The same exact pony from the first painting had just appeared in the painting out of nowhere, now sitting upon the bed. Her parasol was gone, but the curl of charcoal hair…and that collar band around her neck…no, it couldn’t be…

Vinyl shook the scene out of her eyes and kept running along the outside wall. A smooth saxophone melody was now entering the fray, giving the saccharine music a whole new level of disgusting.

“No, not the sax!” she wailed. Vinyl was now galloping so fast, the paintings were zooming beside her like racecars. The room was beginning to expand on its own, as well as the ceiling. Every ten feet felt like an inch, every second of the music could have been minutes. Oh, the inhu—er—ponity…?

…Um…well let’s just say things were bad. Yes, indeed, nine-hundred degrees. As bad as bad could possibly go, while still not yet being bad enough to kill her. As the sappy paintings continued to whizz by, the room had become more or less the width of a football stadium.

“GyaaaaHHHH I CAN’T TAKE IT!” screamed Vinyl at the top of her lungs. “WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPEN—!”

BAM!

Literally out of nowhere, a single wooden door appeared before her, knocking her flat. Just a titch shy of a concussion, Vinyl shook off the stars swimming around her and wrenched open the door, praying it was an exit.

Instead of an exit, to her bewilderment, was yet another painting. But unlike all the other paintings, this one was so intricately done, it could have been a photograph. In the painting, standing tall, elegant, yet as mighty as ever, was Princess Celestia. Familiar and unfamiliar faces dotted the picture all around her, but most prominent, was a greyish earth pony in a startlingly pretty black dress. Although blushing furiously, the joy in the pony’s purple eyes couldn’t be hid. Her outstretched hoof was grasping the hoof of Celestia, who, too, was beaming. It could have made the cover of a magazine. Or the picture frame beside her front door.

“Tavi…,” breathed Vinyl automatically.

All at once, the music, lights, everything, had vanished and the room had gone dark.

“Whoa, what the…?”

Silence. Then—

“My name is Octavia.”

CrrrrrRRREEAAAAAKKKKK!

The gigantic metal arm had emerged out of the darkness and scooped up Vinyl in one sinister motion. Vinyl writhed and screamed as the metal arm lifted her higher into the air, its destination unknown.

“My name is Octaviaaaaaa…”

“No it’s not, you gigantic heap of scrap metal! Lemme go!”

“Well alright…if you inssssssssist!”

The metal arm swung in a circle and pitched her into the abyss with the speed of a fastball. Her screams echoed into nothingness as she tumbled helplessly through the air, her eyes glued shut. Then before she knew it, she had met solid ground again.

Smack!

Vinyl opened her eyes once she realized she wasn’t dead and beheld a tall podium of cherry wood in front of her. Jutting off on either side of the column, nearly as tall as the column itself, were walls made out of the same material. A single spotlight was beaming down between her and the podium, just enough to illuminate the scene. Everything else around her was shrouded in pitch black darkness, soundless.

Vinyl climbed to her hooves and looked up toward the top of the great podium.

“Uh…hello?” she called. For a few moments, there was no response, until three more spotlights clanged open above the podium and walls.

“Good evening, everypony,” announced a familiar voice from atop the podium. Vinyl squinted her eyes up toward the speaker and noticed a thin, midnight blue figure with a flowing mane.

“Princess Luna?”

An earsplitting groaning sound behind her made Vinyl stumble to the ground in surprise. Two gigantic double doors, thousands of times wider than the elevator door, opened up to reveal an immense crowd of ponies. The tumult of cheers gave Vinyl the impression she had just fallen into a concert stage right before show time. She attempted to disappear off to the side in embarrassment until an invisible force bounced her back.

“Trying to leave are we?” called Princess Luna, her voice ten times louder than normal. She looked amused. “And leave your fans?”

“My...fans, your majesty?” Vinyl turned back toward the audience. There had to be tens of thousands of them!

Vinyl’s face glowed a brilliant pink. She smiled awkwardly and waved at them all, feeling completely stupid. The crowd roared enthusiastically, oblivious to her mistake she had made.

“Flattering, isn’t it?” said Luna kindly.

“Yeah totally! But…,” Vinyl turned back to Luna. “What the heck is going on? Where am I? Why are you here? Uh…your majesty?”

Luna laughed. Vinyl didn’t think it was funny at all; she was growing tired of all the confusion. She just wanted to go home…

“Right. Well, excuse me, your majesty—and—my fans,” Vinyl waved brightly at the audience, “—but I need to get home. Tavi will kill me if she finds out—”

“Her name is Octavia,” hissed Princess Luna. Her face had suddenly appeared an inch away. Vinyl nearly jumped out of her skin!

“S-sorry!” breathed Vinyl, her heart once again beating a hundred miles an hour.

Princess Luna withdrew her head back up to her podium.

“No you’re not,” said Luna, her voice now normal. But the smile had not returned.

“Please, Princess Luna, I need to get—”

“Home? You mean the house you and Octavia share?”

“Yyyeah?” said Vinyl, raising an eyebrow. Why was she still talking so loud? All her fans were here...

“You have done nothing to rightfully call that your home,” said Luna, frowning. Vinyl could hear the crowd steadily growing quieter.

“Princess Luna, please, not now—”

“The truth is embarrassing, isn’t it? Oh and everypony thought you were so cool!”

Vinyl sprinted toward the side of the stage. This wasn’t happening.

“How long has it been since you paid the rent?”

Vinyl found herself back on the opposite side of the stage, as though she had just teleported there.

“When was the last time you hung out with each other? When was the last time you bought the groceries? Cleaned the bathroom? Scrubbed the kitchen? When was the last time you appreciated any of my music?!”

In Vinyl’s surmounting state of panic and the booing coming from the audience, Vinyl didn’t notice that Luna’s voice was steadily becoming Octavia’s.

“Just keep running away, Vinyl. RUN AWAY!”

Vinyl was sprinting with all her might, trying to block out the booing from the audience.

“Behold, everypony! The great Vinyl Scratch! The worst roommate in HISTORY!”

As Vinyl frantically galloped from side to side of the stage, scenes of her life began to play on a screen above the podium. Vinyl, shocked by what she was seeing, slowed to a halt.

There was the fight with her and Octavia when she had missed her performance. After that, the time she ditched Octavia at a party to chat with some other old friends. Then came the time she had finally succeeded in convincing their walks in the park were pointless and she’d rather sleep.

Somewhere along in the video, after countless scenes of her criticizing Octavia for her taste in music, was the time she purposely got her and Octavia kicked out of an art exhibit just so she never had to go back. Then the time she accused Octavia of losing one of her favorite records, which she ended up finding underneath her bed.

They didn’t stop.

Vinyl inclined her head, too ashamed to continue looking. Ignoring the surmounting dislike being radiated by the crowd, Vinyl noticed an EXIT sign had finally appeared on the left side of the stage, over a small set of double doors. Barely even looking where she was going, she walked toward the doors and they opened automatically. The scenes still haunting her, she stepped into the doorway.

The elevator doors closed behind her. The room was completely dark. Where the column of buttons once sprawled on the wall, just two buttons remained, one pointing up and the other pointing down. Vinyl stared at the buttons, deciding if she even dared to push one again. Each destination ended up in her meeting her fate. Would the same be true again?

Vinyl, her hoof shaking, pressed the downward facing button. The elevator buzzed down the shaft and Vinyl remained standing in silence. When the elevator had finally reached a stopping point, Vinyl prepared herself for action.

The double doors opened and showed their contents. A large party, with more ponies than Vinyl had ever experienced at a party, were dancing energetically to the background music. Vinyl recognized the track as one of her own. Off to the side were tables full of drinks and refreshments, countless comfortable chairs, and a mixing station where Vinyl would usually be hanging out at. It was in a very real sense, the perfect party. A couple of ponies, who Vinyl recognized as Carrot Top and Lyra, waved at her to come join them.

Normally, Vinyl would have been out the door before even taking in the full scene. But as though a sickling feeling was coming over her, she eyed the scene nonchalantly and closed the door.

“No.”

L E S S T H A N O N E H O U R R E M A I N S

Hour Five: Perfectly Imperfect

H O U R F I V E

Several minutes went by before Vinyl realized she was back in the living room, still confined to the space underneath the couch cushions. She pushed off the cushions, halfway hoping the entire night had been a dream and the house would be good as new. But when she beheld the great mess all around her and the damage done to the interior to the home, her memory quickly flowed back into her. Vinyl sighed heavily and fell back into the couch, thoroughly miserable.

Well, at least her fans didn’t all hate her. And Octavia didn’t actually shape-shift into a dragon and devour her in one gulp. But those flashbacks she saw near the end of the dream were very much real. Racking her brain, Vinyl could remember each and every one of those scenes like they had happened yesterday.

“The worst roommate in HISTORY,” echoed Princess Luna’s voice inside of her head. Although she knew that bit was a part of her dream, if the scenes were real, then perhaps, did Octavia actually think that way about her in real life? Was she truly the worst roommate in history?

“You didn’t kill anybody, dude,” said her conscious, jutting in. “Roommates have killed people before. You didn’t do that…”

Vinyl snorted. So she was comparing herself with murderers, was she? Well whoop-de-freaking-do! She wasn’t a murderer!

“Well…you didn’t burn the house down! Roommates have probably done that—”

“Oh shut up,” mumbled Vinyl, turning the imaginary knob on her head once more and tuning out her conscious. With her other hoof, she turned another make-believe knob and tried to tune into the bad side.

“What? Who’sss there? Is that you, Fuzzhead?”

“Yeah, Bad Conscious, it’s me. Listening to you now,” said Vinyl, kicking a broken corner piece of what was once her turntable.

“Ooooh splendid!” hissed the voice in pleasure. “What’s on your mind, dear?”

“Oh you know…I’m pretty much screwed, so I’m coming to you, dude. I’m done.”

“Well you’ve come to the right placccce! Okay, first off, grab a kettle—”

“DUDE! What are you doing?!” shouted another voice in her ear. It was the good conscious again.

“Ugh,” said Vinyl, smacking a hoof to her forehead. “Beat it, man! I’m trying to argue with the other half of myself.”

“Who’sss that you’re talking to, Fuzzhead? Is it Mr. Goodygood again?”

“Goodygood? Is that the best you can come up with, you moron?” Said The Good.

“Moron? Hehehe,” the Bad cackled. “Who’s Fuzzhead—sorry—Vinyl—she’s above that name now—listening to? Not you!”

“Bad, she listens to me 55.6 percent of time. I win overall.”

“Oooh a five-and-a-half percent margin! Go you!”

“It’s still a win though.”

“It’s all about who controlssss the throne.”

“You’re only winning the battle, not the war.”

“Battle? I’ll show you a battle, you self-righteous prick—”

“Oh so we’ve graduated from juvenile insults and moved up to grown-up ones, now have we?”

“Guys, guys!” shouted Vinyl, clutching her head. “You’re not helping, like, at all!”

“See, now dear Vinyl is upssset. Stop butting in.”

“Bad, my entire existence depends on me butting in.”

“What are you talking about? We don’t exist.”

“HEY shhhhhh…” hissed The Good this time. It lowered its voice to a bare whisper. “She’s out of her mind right now. She doesn’t know that.”

“Uh, guys. I can literally hear everything you’re saying—”

The bickering was interrupted by the distant chime of a clock out in Canterlot. Vinyl’s eyes widened. The time!

Vinyl scrambled off the couch and searched for the clock, which had flown off the wall during the fight. After a half-minute of searching, she came across the clock, which was miraculously unbroken. It was fifteen minutes to midnight.

“I am so dead,” groaned Vinyl, hopelessly looking around at the destruction, panic flooding into her veins. Octavia was going to be here in a quarter of an hour. If the royal guards didn’t have a reason to arrest her before, they certainly did now. There was nothing stopping Octavia from busting her for property damage.

“Tavi would never do that…she’s too nice,” whispered the Bad calmly. “It wasn’t your fault anyway…it was those armored meatheads…”

“Vinyl, you were the one brought them here in the first place!” chimed in The Good.

“Tavi was the one who forced her to stay here in the first place—”

“Vinyl was the one who caused Octavia to be upset!”

The arguing went on and on.

A glazed indifference had covered Vinyl’s eyes while her heart pounded relentlessly. Half of her wanted to run from the house and never look back. The other half was holding her there, stubbornly holding on to that last shred of dignity. The scenes from the dream flashed like a strobe light against the walls of her brain. Records were being shred to bits and tossed in a fire. Lights were fading to black. Colors were oozing out of where they belonged and lost down a sewer drain. Suns were going black and moons were crumbling to dust. The particles floated off into space, toward a black hole. Vinyl saw herself spiraling along with the dust.

“—but what truly matters is that Vinyl was the one—”

“Oh can it already, Good-for-Nothing. It all boilssss down to what Tavi chose to do…isn’t that right, my dear? …Vinyl dear? Are you there?”

Vinyl did not respond. How could she have let her life get this out of hand? How could she have ignored and set aside her very best friend, like a discarded record? She really should have been hauled off by those guards. Suddenly, Thimble’s squat and ugly face didn’t compare to the abomination that smirked on the covers of all her albums. Luna was right; Vinyl didn’t deserve to be here. Octavia deserved better.

“Vinyl? Fuzzhead? Fuzzy Wuzzhead—”

“Her name—” growled Vinyl quietly, glancing over to the picture frame beside the front door. A single white spark emitted from her horn and fell to the floor, glowing. “—is Octavia.”

The spark bounced off a shard of glass and into another close to it. The two tiny pieces, as though they had minds of their own, joined one another and became a larger shard. A sharp bink emitted from the shard of glass, making Vinyl lose her gaze.

“Huh?” she said, looking down toward the noise. She noticed just in time to see a fine white line disappearing down the middle of the two shards, leaving a seamless fix. Vinyl magicked the shard up in front of her face.

“Heh, just like Neon’s glasses,” she smiled weakly, tossing the shard back onto the ground. Her glass repairing spell had saved her glasses more times than she could count. She kicked herself again, realizing that it was Octavia who had bought her the book with the spell that taught her how to do it in the first place. Vinyl knew Octavia had always been secretly jealous of her ability to perform magic, but she still helped her anyway. If only the spell could have repaired their friendship…

“Wait a sec…”

▓ ▓ ▓

A large crowd of ponies were filing nosily out of the glass doors to the theater, which was shrouded in darkness. One of the only buildings in Canterlot purely lit by electricity, the Royal Canterlot Theatre was in a state of chaos. Ushers trying to find candlesticks to light were trampled and beaten out of the way by the forest of walking sticks marching alongside their upper-crusted owners. Unicorns were colliding repeatedly into the backsides of others, who squawked painfully. Their attempts to light the way by magic were being perpetually interrupted by more whacking of sticks. Pegasi had the only upper-hoof, hovering above all their heads, but were forced to pile up at the exit until they could funnel through the doorways. Discord would have heartily approved.

“Who touched my flank?”

WHACK

“Why I never—”

WHACK

“I think I just stepped on somepony’s…face…”

WHACK

“Who touched my flank?”

WHACK

“My leg! My leg…”

Among the confusion was Sledge, closely followed by Octavia, who had managed to evade all the swinging of canes so far. Sledge, on the other hand, had been whacked across the face dozens of times already. But not wanting to show weakness in front of Octavia, he bulldozed on. His size enabled him to part the crowd easily, but it was so dark that Octavia could barely see him, so she was forced to awkwardly walk close behind him. She was so close, Sledge’s tail brushed up against her face constantly.

“Thank Celestia it’s dark in here,” she said, pleading they were almost there.

When they had finally reached the exit, they stopped. Octavia kicked Sledge in the back of the legs before she could stop herself. Sledge immediately jumped ahead, bowling a couple of pegasi out of the way, then held the door open for her.

“Thank you,” she said breathlessly, not noticing the pegasi’s screams as they disappeared under the crowd. When she was outside Octavia stepped to the side and faced the theater while Sledge was talking to a nearby guard. Octavia yawned, glad the play had decided to cancel due to the power outage. She had a warm, fluffy bed at home with her name written all over it.

“So apparently,” said Sledge, coming over after a few minutes, “the electricity has gone out in all of Canterlot. Every last light, lamp and toaster has stopped working.”

Octavia raised an eyebrow.

“How…does that even happen?” she asked, confused. A blackout in Canterlot had never happened before.

“No idea,” said Sledge, just as quizzical. “My best guess is it was caused by magic. But it would have taken a mighty powerful unicorn to cast a spell strong enough to blow out all the power in Canterlot at once…”

“Perhaps Celestia got woken up again?” said Octavia with a shudder. The last time Celestia was woken up prematurely from her sleep, she thought a meteor had just exploded outside her house. Legend has it, the guard who was responsible was still recovering from third degree burns, even though the night had happened years ago. For such a calm and patient mare, Princess Celestia didn’t take kindly to being woken up for anything less than an absolute emergency.

Sledge winced, recalling the night. “Poor Stratton…his mane still hasn’t grown back…”

Octavia yawned, starting to become too tired to even contemplate such an oddity. Sledge looked toward the street pointedly.

“C’mon, let’s get you home,” he said, nudging her.

“Mmhmm sounds good,” she said sleepily, following his lead.

Shortly into the walk through the lamp-lit street, after the confusion of the crowd had faded away, Octavia’s thoughts returned to Vinyl.

“I wonder how Vinyl is dealing without her electricity,” she thought, smirking. “If only she knew how to play strings or a piano, she wouldn’t have to worry!”

She wasn’t sorry. All the late night house parties, the broken promises, and the times she blew her off…how could she had let her walk all over her like that? She was Octavia; she didn’t have to put up with this rubbish. Sledge, who she still secretly thought was an oversized meat puppet, was in the right: she was the boss of the house! Vinyl was in no position to disrespect her.

But then again…she wasn’t perfect either. Sometimes she forgot to dust the picture frames, or do the dishes when Vinyl ‘forgot’, and she even neglected to check up on her dresses Vinyl was supposed to dryclean. She had missed a rehearsal last week because she had forgot to triple check her schedule, and she had neglected her diet for the fifth time this month…oh she was so far behind…

Octavia chewed at her lip anxiously, deep in thought.

“Sorry about tonight, Octavia,” said Sledge finally, not looking at her.

Octavia smiled and made a sound of friendly dismissal.

“It’s quite alright,” she said, wanting to leave the drama back at the theater. “I already knew how it ended anyway.”

“Y-you did?” said Sledge, doing a double take. “How?”

“Oh you know…I read,” she said airily.

“Oh yeah? Me too.”

“What do you read?”

“Uh, you know. Novels.”

“Which ones—”

“War novels,” said Sledge, not missing a beat.

Octavia eyed him suspiciously.

“Have you read V. Scratchworth’s newest novel?” she asked, feigning interest.

“Oh definitely; read the whole thing in three days,” said Sledge, nodding.

“Huh…look at you,” she said, smiling. V. Scratchworth didn’t exist.

“Yup. So are you sure you’re okay?” he said, changing the subject.

“It’s just past my bedtime.”

Sledge chuckled.

“Tch, who has a bedtime on weekends?” said Sledge, nudging her.

“I guess I do,” said Octavia, shrugging. She started to walk faster.

“I once stayed up for a week straight, you know,” said Sledge, keeping up with her. “Was really easy.”

“You don’t say.” Octavia increased her pace to a canter.

“I bet you could pull one as well,” he said, grinning. “All the awesome stuff happens after midnight.”

“I beg to differ.”

▓ ▓ ▓

“Psst…Vinyl,” said a voice in Vinyl’s ear. She ignored it. Vinyl was busy pacing around the house, trying to think of the best possible excuse for the wreckage. But each excuse was becoming more ridiculous than the last.

“Psst…Vinyl,” said The Good again, this time louder. It badgered her several more times until Vinyl finally gave in.

“What? What? What is it already?”

“Stop moping around and clean this place up already!” nagged the voice.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Good conscious, I’ve tried doing that. I failed miserably.”

“Then try it as an earth pony…pretend you’re Octavia.”

“Pretend I’m Octavia?” laughed Vinyl. “What, you mean pick all this stuff up without magic—”

“Exactly.”

“You’re out of your mind. That would take hours!”

“Actually, I’m in your mind. And you don’t know that.”

“Yeah, but…,” Vinyl said, looking around. She wasn’t a cleaner, nor had she ever been. There was simply no way….

“Octavia will be home any minute. It’s your choice, bud.”

Vinyl picked up the piece of mended glass and glanced over the rubble. Could she do it? Could she…clean? Vinyl shuddered at those words. They were almost completely alien to her. But she had to…what other choice did she have?

Vinyl, clueless, magicked the garbage can over to her and picked up the shard of glass. With great effort, she dropped it into the bag, saying her goodbyes to what was once a part of her turntable. She threw away the rest of the glass with her magic, wincing when the glass hit the bottom.

“That was…easy,” said Vinyl, moving the garbage can. A portion, although small, had now been completely removed from the ground. She had done it!

Vinyl magicked a piece of plastic and it soared over her head into the can. “It’s good!” said Vinyl, happily. She piled as much of the plastic she could into the can before it filled all the way to the top. Tying the bag and throwing it into an empty closet, Vinyl pulled bag after bag out of the kitchen cupboard and sent pieces flying into each of them.

The feeling was incredible. The floor was slowly but surely being deprived of all its clutter, save the pieces of drywall that still littered the floor in random areas. Vinyl picked up the clock and hung it neatly back on the wall. It was ten to midnight.

“Has that picture frame always been that crooked?” Vinyl asked herself, glancing over at a portrait of a lush garden, which hung next to Octavia’s bedroom door. The frame was slightly tilted to the left. Vinyl rushed over to correct it.

“Ugh,” she said, noticing a film of dust on the edges of the frame. “This thing needs some attention.” Vinyl flew to the bathroom’s sink cabinet to retrieve a can of dust cleaner and a rag. Finding them instantly, she returned to the painting and cleaned up the dust.

After she had cleaned up the last of the remains of her equipment (“–rest in peace, my sweet—”), Vinyl’s attention turned to the rest of the room.

“I gotta do something with these cracks and holes,” she said quietly, eying the closet door Thimble had crashed into and the voids in the ceiling. “But how…”

Her magic wasn’t practiced enough to mend such enormous holes, but she had another idea. Maybe, perhaps, if she just tried to use her fixing spell on each piece at a time, she could eventually repair even the largest holes? It was worth a shot.

Vinyl picked up a small piece of drywall and lifted it up to the ceiling with her magic. The piece locked into it, like a puzzle piece. In a flash of light, the piece had completely fastened itself with the ceiling, with a seamless transition. Vinyl stamped a foreleg in victory.

“Excellent,” she said. Vinyl lifted another and did the same. Once again, the piece locked into place and became a part of the ceiling once more. Before five minutes had passed, the whole ceiling had been completely put back together.

“Good work, Vinyl Scratch,” she said to herself smartly, fixing up the door and walls the same way. In five more minutes, the living room had been rid of its chaos. Vinyl glanced at the clock.

Midnight.

Taking a deep breath, Vinyl ran back over to the window to look out into the darkened streets. Miraculously, Octavia was still nowhere to be seen. She climbed back down onto the couch, straightening out the pillows in the process, and gave a deep breath. There was still much to be done.

Vinyl gave the house another look-over.

“Look at all this white dust…I hope this will come out,” she said nervously, tip-toeing around the sheetrock dust that was trampled into the carpet. Vinyl stepped into the kitchen pantry and pulled out a vacuum. Although she had never operated this once, Vinyl gracefully sent its cord into the wall with a quick spell and proceeded to glide the vacuum across the dusty carpet.

“Maybe I should vacuum these sofa cushions too…,” she said, once the dust had been dealt with. Vinyl flung the attached vacuum hose into the cracks of the couch, humming a piece from Pulling Heart Strings.

“Now on to the kitchen!” she said melodically, hopping over to the kitchen. She gasped at the pile of dishes in the sink.

“I can’t believe I neglected these for this long,” she said in disbelief. She scrubbed them clean.

▓ ▓ ▓

“Miss…Octavia…what’s the rush?” Wheezed Sledge, who was trailing behind a speeding Octavia.

Octavia was in such a rush to get away from him, she hadn’t noticed she took a wrong turn and missed the street leading down into Lower Canterlot. They had reached a small courtyard when she finally stopped to rest.

“I thought you…you said you were tired?” gasped Sledge, fumbling to straighten his tie.

“I said…it was my bedtime,” she panted, eying his every move.

“Look, how about we just hang out here for a while—”

“I thought you were escorting me home?”

There was a short pause.

“Of course! I just thought we could talk for a bit more—”

“And then what?” said Octavia, exasperated. “Huh?”

“Miss Octavia I’m sorry if I’m—”

“Don’t be sorry, Sledge. Just please leave me—”

“You’re totally taking this the wrong—”

“SHUT UP!”

Crickets were chirping. Leaves were rustling. Ponies were snoring. Somewhere really far down the street, a door closed. After nearly a minute of silence, Octavia spoke.

“Look, I’m not interested. I’m tired and I want to go home. Take me home or take a walk. You follow?”

Sledge was thunderstruck. For a long time, he didn’t speak. Octavia assumed he was trying to come up with another way to try and flirt with her. But finally, without saying a word, Sledge turned on a hoof and took off into the sky. With an ego as inflated as his head, it was surprising he didn’t float away like a hot-air balloon. He could have floated higher and farther than any other pegasus could ever hope to achieve. But sadly, Sledge wasn’t a balloon. He was a meat puppet with wings.

“Stallions,” she said angrily under her breath. They were all the same. The ones in Canterlot, at least. With an exhausted sigh, Octavia set off back down the way she came.

When she had finally reached Lower Canterlot, her mood still hadn’t improved. The unusually dark streets gave her an increased feeling of anxiety, adding to the stress that was already weighing down on her.

“What are you staring at?” snapped Octavia, passing a stallion who had been strolling placidly outside a bakery. He raised an eyebrow at her then went back to his business.

“What are you doing out so late, beautiful?” called another stallion farther down the street.

“Aww, did you just get dumped?” said his friend next to him, smirking. A group of young mares behind them laughed as the stallion looked at Octavia with fake pity.

Octavia slowed to a stop and glared over at them.

“Ooh, I think you made her mad, Riff,” said one of the mares, smirking.

To their surprise, Octavia dropped the glare and smiled at them. She walked up to the two stallions.

“No, I haven’t been in a relationship for quite some time,” said Octavia. “I was just on my way to pick up some chocolate. It’s just that time of the month you know.” She winked at them.

Octavia could have been a leper for the reaction she received. Horrified, the stallions jumped back into the group of mares and knocked them to the ground.

“Freakin’ gross!”

Smug and unembarrassed, Octavia straightened her bowtie and continued on back down the street. The yells from the stallions were so loud, several other ponies in nearby homes had opened their front doors, looking around as though expecting Canterlot was being bombed.

“I’m surrounded by idiots,” mumbled Octavia under her breath.

▓ ▓ ▓

Vinyl Scratch marveled at the sight before her. For the first time in years, her room was finally clean. Tangled masses of cords, electronics and stray music discs were finally organized and rearranged. Thick layers of dust that had lined nearly everything did not exist; the only way the surfaces could have been shinier is if she buffered them all. The blue shag rug that used to lay underneath a particularly chaotic pile of boxes in one corner was no longer lost. She spent at least five whole minutes vacuuming the rug, which was essentially a dirt trap. However, the finished product was all worth it.

Vinyl continued throughout the house, taking care to instantly remove any speck of dirt or spot she could find. By the time the clock had shown half-past midnight, the entire house had been made new again. The only imperfections were the poor dresses Vinyl had ruined, which she ceremoniously lifted up to her bedroom, praying that she could find a master tailor to fix them.

The phone cord that had once dangled from the wall had been pushed back in and covered with a painting of Bridle Shores from the stairwell. The composition of the painting complemented the colors of the kitchen better than the stairwell, and Octavia was planning on buying a wireless phone anyway.

“There…that’s better, isn’t it?” said an approving voice in her ear.

“Octavia shall certainly be pleased,” said Vinyl, smiling.

“You’re a good friend, Vinyl. Good night.”

Given all the events that had happened tonight, these words should have lifted her spirits. But deep down, she couldn’t believe them. She overturned her foreleg hoof, which had been stained from all the cleaning. The other hoof looked the same. Vinyl then became aware of just how sweaty and oily her fur was. Her mane felt sticky and matted, as well as her tail. Once again, her heart began thumping inside of her chest.

“Oh Celestia…I can’t let Octavia see me like this,” she said, trying not to throw up all over the newly vacuumed floor. She had to get to the shower as quickly as possible. Not daring to look into the mirror as she ran into the bathroom, Vinyl turned the shower knob all the way to ‘H’ and yanked it on. She stood up on her hind legs and let the water run down her back, sighing deeply. Then, magicking one of Octavia’s volumizing shampoo bottles from off a metal rack, she emptied half of it over her head.

“Lovely.”

█ █ █

“Finally,” gasped Octavia, turning onto the final street toward her house. She was exhausted. At this point, she didn’t even care if Vinyl had decided to abandon the house for the night again and sleep at a friend’s house. The last thing she wanted to deal with right now was drama from Vinyl when she got home. If she still happened to be there and so much as spoke to her, she would come unglued. Octavia tried to focus simply on her warm bed. It was the only friend who truly understood.

When the house finally came into view, Octavia did a double take, making sure she wasn’t hallucinating. Light was shining through the blinds of every window, even on the second floor. The two Canterlot guards that had spoken with her earlier were across the street from the house, pacing. Every few seconds they eyed the house warily, as though it was some kind of unpredictable beast. When they saw Octavia gallop into view they waved her down.

“Evening, ma’am. What brings you to this end of town so late?” asked one of the guards.

“I live here,” said Octavia grumpily. “What is going on?”

The guards looked at each other and shrugged.

“No idea. Princess Luna is investigating. We’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Interesting,” said Octavia, yawning. “Well if you gents don’t mind, I’m going to bed.” She started towards the front door.

“Wait, you live here?” asked the guard, astounded. “You know the violent young mare who lives here?”

Octavia stopped in her tracks.

“What?” She said, spinning around.

“The assault case we told you about earlier happened here,” said the guard cautiously.

Octavia stared at them.

“Assault? What?”

“Well…Princess Luna acquitted the charges but we’re still on watch—”

She was barely listening due to her anger. If Vinyl really had assaulted someone, there was no way she was staying. Octavia couldn’t believe it.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. VINYL!” screamed Octavia, racing up the steps to the front door. A huge dent that hadn’t been there when she left was imprinted into the door. Octavia tried the doorknob, but it was locked. She pounded it furiously with her hoof.

Late-night strollers in the surrounding area watched the scene. The guards braced themselves, but took no action. Even they knew it was unwise to put themselves in the middle of a cat fight.

“Ugh!”

Octavia’s eyes were swimming with tears of rage. How could Vinyl do this to her? She felt ridiculous, locked out of her own home by her idiotic best friend. She was reminded of her strict parents, who would lock her outside all night if she came home after curfew. She wasn’t going back. Never. She called the shots now.

Octavia was about to call assistance from the guards when the door opened and light flooded into the alleyway. Taking one look at the pony before her, she fainted onto the threshold.

Crickets were chirping. Leaves were rustling. Ponies were snoring. Far away, a clock was chiming. Somewhere down in Ponyville, a door closed. Mouths hung open from every onlooker in the area. Octavia’s twin of a different color palette stood horrified in the doorway, as the finale of a symphony flowed behind her.

“Oc…tavia?”

☼

When Octavia finally came to, sunlight was flowing through the pink curtains in front of her window. She was lying comfortably in bed, as though the whole night had been a silly nightmare. The image of Vinyl was still imprinted vividly in her mind. The rest of the night was merely a blur.

Heaving a long sigh, she sat up and brushed the hair out of her eyes. Her eyes scanned the pink walls of her bedroom and finally rested on a note that was taped to her vanity. She scrambled out of bed and yanked it off.

“Octavia—,” the note read, “I screwed up.”

“You got that right, sister,” she said coolly. She continued reading.

“I’m not going to pretend like I deserve to be forgiven, because I don’t. That would be, like, even lamer than everything else I already did to you…if that’s possible. I’ve been such a jerk for so long, I’d have to kill you in order to do anything worse.”

“Such a way with words,” said Octavia sarcastically.

“So…yeah. I’m not good at writing these kinds of things, but I’m writing the truth and sincerely hope you understand me. If there’s one thing I can ask you at this point, it’s to ask you this: stay away from me.”

“What?” said Octavia, confused. She put the note closer to her face.

“Let me say that again…stay away from me. I’m a bad influence to you, Octavia. I don’t mean this like I think you can’t think for yourself, but all I do is drag you down anymore. What kind of friend is that? Friends are supposed to lift you up, not bring you down. Sure, we’ve had our good times…tons of good times…but I think those times are long gone. I don’t want them to be, but…”

Octavia found the next line hard to read due to it being smudged. She held the note closer still.

“…they have to be. You’re a beautiful, disciplined genius while I’m just a lazy disc jockey who parties and knows how to flip some switches. Most of the friends I have only love me because of my music. I’d be a nopony around here without it. But even if you didn’t make music, you’d still be the prettiest stinkin’ thing around…and smart…and an amazing friend…and—”

Oh shut up, Vinyl. Shut up,” she said through a fresh set of tears.

“I once heard that in order to be successful, you need to drop the losers from your life. Drop me. PLEASE. I’m not looking for self-pity, and it would piss me off if I thought you didn’t think any of this was true.

Anyways…wow I’ve said a lot here already. I don’t think I’ve ever written this much—even music! Haha. But I hope this all makes sens—”

The rest of the letter was illegible, but Octavia had read enough. She ripped up the letter and dashed from her bedroom. Galloping up the staircase to Vinyl’s bedroom, she prayed that Vinyl would be there. But upon opening the door, she met only a few empty boxes and her bed. Everything else had vanished.

Octavia shook her head, refusing to believe any of it. Vinyl wouldn’t just leave like this. She couldn’t…could she?

She sprinted back down the stairs and made for the front door. But before she could do so, she caught the eye of an unexpected visitor laying on her couch.

“Good afternoon, Octavia,” said Princess Celestia, smiling.

“Y-Your Majesty?”

Octavia straightened up her face as best as she could and bowed deeply to the princess.

“Are you alright, my little pony?” said Celestia, stepping tenderly off the couch and walking over to her. Octavia, still bowing, shook from intimidation. The area around her was noticeably warmer as Celestia drew nearer.

“I-I’ll be alright,” said Octavia, smiling nervously. “But—excuse me for asking this—what brings you to my home, Your Majesty?”

Celestia smiled. “Rise, my dear, and I will tell.” Octavia stood back on all fours and Celestia pointed at the picture frame of her and Octavia by the front door.

“What do we see in this picture here?”

Octavia studied the picture intently, hoping to provide the right answer.

“Well…you are awarding me with a blue ribbon at the Canterlot Gardens last year. For my musical performance. I…also see other friends and acquaintances, as well as the other contestants…and that’s about it.”

“Well, yes, that would be who. But I asked what you see in this picture. Would you like to know what I see in this picture?”

Octavia said nothing.

“I see beauty, talent, and nobility. At the same time, I see envy, doubt, and resentment. All qualities that lie within every single pony in this picture.”

“Except you—”

“Especially me,” said Celestia. “I cannot tell you how many times I have been angry with my sister in our co-ruling. Sometimes I envy the quiet life of my pupils instead of the responsibilities I have to uphold as a Princess. When I banished our own Princess Luna to the Moon, I doubted my decision for a thousand years. Never have I considered myself perfect, and neither should you, my little pony.”

Octavia nodded, wiping away a tear from her eye. Celestia turned to the window.

“Luna arrived at your home last night just after the commotion with you and Miss Scratch. We finally discovered the source of the power outage.”

“What was it?” asked Octavia.

“Dark magic.”

“Dark…magic?” Octavia wasn’t sure she understood.

“This home rests less than twenty feet above the top of the highest shaft in the dungeons of Canterlot castle. The dungeons are full of negative energy, and one of its hotspots is directly underneath this area of Lower Canterlot.”

Octavia’s eyes widened and she gasped. Celestia smiled reassuringly.

“The energy doesn’t affect earth ponies, so you don’t have to worry, my dear. However, sometimes it can manipulate unicorns when they are feeling intense negativity. Combined with your home, one of the most electric hubs in Canterlot, the result can be quite interesting.”

“Oh my…,” whispered Octavia, worrying about Vinyl. As though Celestia could read her mind, the Princess turned back toward her.

“Miss Scratch didn’t suffer here tonight in vain,” said Celestia. “Luna told me she cares deeply about you, but she needed some time alone to realize it.”

There was a long silence between them, filled by the ticking of the circular clock on the living room wall. It was just after eleven in the morning.

“What am I to do?” said Octavia quietly.

“The choice is up to you, dear. But whatever happens, remember what I said about perfection. Although I understand it’s important to take your work seriously, never take yourself too seriously. We could all use another laugh or two anyway,” Celestia ended with a wink. Then with a flash nearly as bright as the sun itself, she had disappeared.

There wasn’t a moment’s hesitation. She flung the door open and raced out into the street, hoping it wasn’t all too late. Morning shoppers stared at her as she galloped through the street, but they were as good as invisible to her.

A few minutes into her search, Octavia noticed a thick of ponies near a pawn shop. Octavia paid them no attention until a familiar face called her over.

“Ay! Octavia!” shouted Neon Lights, who was near the front of the crowd. His head had a light bandage around it, but otherwise he was just like his pre-concussed self. Neon pushed through the crowd over to her.

“Neon! Have you seen Vinyl?” asked Octavia breathlessly.

“Seen Vinyl?” said Neon, almost laughing. “Well yeah, there’s a pony in there that looks like her, but she’s not the Vinyl I used to know.”

Octavia’s heart leapt but Neon’s words troubled her.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s selling all her stuff!”

“WHAT?!”

Octavia charged through the crowd, which were all comprised of angry fans. When she finally pushed her way into the pawn shop, she beheld a large stack of electronics piled high on the front desk. Beside Vinyl was a whole mountain of records—more than even Octavia knew about. What puzzled her most was how she managed to get it all down here.

“Nine thousand five hundred, and that’s a-my final offer!” shouted a bearded stallion behind the desk. He looked extremely harassed.

“I need twelve thousand, pal!” shouted Vinyl even louder. Please man, I can’t let this stuff go for only nine!” Vinyl hugged an older version of her turntable, which was still in near-perfect condition. “C’mon buddy, we’ll find a way—”

“VINYL SCRATCH!” screamed Octavia above the chaos of ponies. The shop fell silent. Vinyl turned slowly to face her, like she had just been caught robbing a bank.

“Octavia, I—”

Octavia ignored her. She threw her forelegs around Vinyl in a neck-breaking hug, knocking off her glasses. Vinyl responded with the same force. The shop broke into an earthquake of applause as the two of them hung on for dear life.

“You’re not going anywhere,” cried Octavia. “Not without me!”

“I just wanted—I just wanted to pay you back—”

“Oh you can’t buy this girl’s heart!”

They were a sobbing mess. The crowd cleared out of the shop as the stallion behind the desk punched numbers into his calculator, seemingly unaffected by the sudden reunion. When he finished, he pushed his calculator towards the front of the counter.

“Twelve thousand. If you want one bit more I’mma throwin’ you outta here,” he said gruffly, but ended with a small smile.

“I’ll take it, man. Thanks,” said Vinyl as she finally broke away from the hug. The stallion threw a hoof into the air in relief. Octavia stared blankly at her.

“Vinyl, that’s everything you have—”

Vinyl put a hoof over her mouth.

“Nah I’ve still got it all.”

“But Vinyl—”

“No. I’ve still got the music. I’ve still got the shades. And most importantly, babe, I’ve still got you.”

E N D