Chapters Chronology notes: Stop! You are reading the second story in the Bonds of Eternity Series.
The first story in the Series is Family found here:
Nihil Novi Sub Sole Chapter 1
Vinyl Scratch awoke to a knock on the door, here she was lying on Twilight Sparkle’s sofa in the Ponyville Library, sleepily rubbing her eyes as she got up to open the front door.
“You’re not Twilight Sparkle!”
Vinyl blinked in the early morning light, Derpy Hooves, the Ponyville postal mare was standing outside with a comically large box that would have been impossible for her to get here by herself, even though Vinyl looked around to find that there was no other pony around who could have helped her.
“Uh... no, I’m not, I’m Vinyl Scratch. I’m just staying with Twilight for a little while... do you need me to go get her?” Vinyl asked.
“Oh, no, if she’s sleeping I don’t want to wake her up! I know she’s usually up all night studying and I feel bad when I have to wake her up to sign for a package. Anypony can do it; it’s just that she’s the only one who usually does.” Derpy said.
“Okay,” Vinyl said with a smile, she took the mare’s pencil and clipboard and signed her name for the package, and returned it.
The wall eyed Pegasus smiled back as she placed the clipboard back into her bag and helped Vinyl bring the large box inside with great difficulty.
“What is in this thing!?” Vinyl asked.
“Couldn’t tell you, not allowed to open anypony’s packages,” Derpy said with a grunt as they brought the box into the centre of the room.
Derpy sighed in relief. “I am so glad to have this thing delivered! It was so heavy!”
Vinyl nodded in agreement and gave the mare another smile. “I hope you don’t mind me saying this... but has anypony ever told you that you have really pretty eyes?”
“I...” the walleyed Pegasus said and then froze, processing what had just been said to her. Her face turned a bright red. “Do... do you really mean that?”
“I do,” Vinyl said with a grin. She found Derpy to be a rather attractive mare, and she knew that if the ponies of Ponyville could look past her eye problems, they’d probably see the same thing to.
“I...” Derpy said, stammering in surprise, she clearly hadn’t heard such a compliment in a long time. “Thank you! Would it be all right... if I could see yours too?”
“Sure!” Vinyl said, lifting her goggles off her face, her bright red eyes shining in the morning light.
Derpy smiled back at her. “You have really pretty eyes too... I uh, I have to get back to delivering the post... maybe I’ll see you tomorrow? Hopefully?”
“I hope so,” Vinyl said grinning from ear to ear.
Derpy bid her goodbye, and continued on her way, humming a cheerful tune as she worked.
Vinyl slid her goggles back down over her eyes and took a look at the large box before her. Twilight was probably going to want to open it right away. Vinyl called for her, and she trotted down the stairs slowly and yawning heavily, upon laying eyes on the box, her eyes widened and she ran over to it.
“It’s here! It’s here!” She cried gleefully.
She went over to her supply closet and levitated a crowbar out from it.
Vinyl watched as she brought it over to it, glancing at the closet. She knew that Twilight liked to be prepared, but sometimes it felt like the solution to every single imaginable problem was inside that closet.
“Why do you have a crowbar?” Vinyl asked.
“Obviously, for this such occasion!” Twilight said with excitement in her voice. She levitated the crowbar up and pried the lid off, it clattered down onto the floor and the two mares looked inside.
Twilight looked at it intensely.
“Isn’t it amazing?” Twilight asked.
Vinyl looked into the box; she wasn’t quite as impressed as Twilight was. “It’s a statue, of a unicorn.”
“Not just any statue! This statue is 2000 years old! And it was found in South Island!” Twilight explained.
Vinyl looked in the box again; the stone unicorn was very old looking to be sure; she looked back at Twilight in confusion. “South Island?” she asked. “How does a 2000 year old statue of a unicorn end up in South Island?”
“That’s why it was sent to me! I’m going to find out!” Twilight said with a smile. “I’ve been corresponding regularly with a professor at the South Island National University, and his archæology team found it while doing a dig at a place called Karlu Karlu, which was a site of worship for a tribe of wallabies that went extinct at about the same time.”
“This tribe, why’d they go extinct?” Vinyl asked.
“No one knows,” Twilight said with a shrug. “But the statue! Finding it proved that ponies had visited South Island before Welera did!”
“Is that a big deal?” Vinyl asked.
Twilight’s face filled with embarrassment. “Not really, even if they did come, they didn’t stay very long, and they obviously didn’t have a lasting impact on the natives.”
Vinyl smirked at her. “Well you have fun egghead! I’ll get out of your way.”
“I’ll need to write Professor Tebbs and let him know that the statue arrived... oh what did I do with my quill?” Twilight said.
Vinyl froze at the mention of a name; she slowly turned around to face Twilight. “Percy Tebbs?”
“Yes as a matter of fact! I was so surprised when he contacted me! I’ve read all his books! He talks about how the history of all peoples in the world are interwoven, and that trying to go it alone can only lead to disaster!” Twilight explained.
“Huh. I’ll have to give them a read,” Vinyl said as she trotted out the door, glad that Twilight was too wrapped up in what she was doing to question where Vinyl knew Percy Tebbs from.
She stopped, and looked back at the statue, something about it caught her eye, like she’d seen it somewhere before. It was as if the statue itself was broadcasting a thought of “look at me! Look at me!”
It couldn’t hurt to have a closer look, could it?
Vinyl trotted back over to the box and reached out with her magic to bring the statue closer to her, the microsecond that her magic touched the statue, lightning arced out of it, sending high amperage current running through the mare’s body, strong enough to toss her backwards into the closed door.
She was dead. There was nothing but blackness, she had to be dead.
“Oh my gosh! Vinyl!” Twilight called out to her.
Okay, clearly not dead, still dark though, Vinyl felt herself opening and closing her eyes, but nothing changed. She began to panic.
“Twi... Twilight? Where are you?”
“I’m right here Vinyl,” Twilight said, her voice cutting through the darkness.
“I... I can’t see Twilight,” Vinyl said, her voice filled with panic. “I can’t see!”
...
Vinyl Scratch’s eyes flung open, she sat up in bed and found herself breathing heavily. Everything was dark and for a moment, she had forgotten why. Then she remembered; she was blind. She had just dreamed about the day she lost her sight.
Vinyl was lying in a hotel bed in a fairly comfortable hotel in Swan City, Western South Island. South Island, the homeland of the kangaroos, easily one of the most beautiful places in the world, and she could see none of it.
“Vinyl Scratch? Is everything all right?” the voice of her companion asked.
“Yes, Princess Luna, I’m perfectly fine,” Vinyl said.
Vinyl Scratch and Princess Luna had travelled to South Island to return the artefact that had blinded her to its hiding place. They were spending the night in Swan City before they would board a train bound for Warrane, New South Welera, and get off at an interchange in Arrernte Springs in the Northern Protectorate. Vinyl Scratch was exceedingly good at direction and studying maps, and would have loved to have planned out the trip. Her lack of sight, however, made it impossible.
“I don’t think I believe you,” Princess Luna said firmly. “Were you dreaming about the accident again?”
“Yeah,” Vinyl said simply. “There’s just too much to look at in the world! I don’t want to go through life not being able to see any of it! I mean we’re here in South Island! The beautiful homeland of the kangaroos! And I can’t see any of it!”
Vinyl Scratch was frustrated, it wasn’t fair! Why did this have to happen to her? Then the thought came into her head, the artefact was going to blind someone, and if Vinyl hadn’t touched it with her magic, then Twilight Sparkle would have.
It could have very easily been Twilight that was blind and not her, and the more Vinyl thought about it, far better for her to suffer than for Twilight to suffer.
“I’ll be fine princess, I’m sorry if I woke you. I’m going to try to go back to sleep now,” Vinyl said, she laid back down in the bed, resting her head upon the pillow and pulled the blankets over her.
Try as she might, Vinyl Scratch would not be sleeping soundly tonight.
Chapter 2
“There he is!” Luna called out, just quietly enough for Vinyl Scratch to hear.
“I’ll take your word for it,” Vinyl said with a grin. The pony that they had seen was Montana Ulan, whom Princess Luna was better acquainted with than Vinyl Scratch. Vinyl had met him once, nay, twice, though technically speaking, one of those times had not happened. The time that did, Vinyl had woken up in Whitetail Wood after a night of partying in Canterlot, only to stumble upon the travelling earth pony. He’d been walking across Equestria at that point, now he was in South Island, travelling on the same passenger ship that they had. It was not a coincidence.
“Our train’s here too,” Luna explained... “He’s getting on our train!”
Most assuredly not a coincidence.
Luna helped Vinyl Scratch board the train, and they went to take their seats, only to find that Montana Ulan was sitting right across from them. There was something bigger than coincidence going on here. It’s like someone, or something had guided them to this point.
“Hi there!” Vinyl said, grinning at Monty Ulan.
“Huh? Oh, hello,” Monty said. “Hey... I think I know you. You were that mare I bumped into on the ship, very sorry about that again.”
“Oh it’s quite all right,” Luna said giving him a gentle smile.
“Do you by any chance remember me?” Vinyl asked.
Monty looked over the white unicorn mare for a moment before responding. “Now that you mention it, you do look familiar.”
“Vinyl Scratch, we met in Whitetail Wood a few weeks ago,” Vinyl said.
“You know what? I do remember you...” Monty said.
“Radical!” Vinyl said with a grin. “This is my friend Starry Night, by the way, kind of crazy huh? We meet in Whitetail Wood, board the same passenger ship for South Island, get off at the same port, then proceed to get on the same train? It’s almost like I’m following you or something.”
Monty did not reply, instead he gave sort of a nervous chuckle
The train started moving, and the conductor came through to check everyone’s tickets, causing a few minutes interrupting in the conversation, as there seemed to be an issue with Monty’s ticket. The conductor took him up to the next car where they could get the issue worked out.
“What are you doing?” Luna asked, “Montana Ulan suffers from a well documented case of chronic paranoia! You’re going to spook him... also, ‘Starry Night?’”
“Hey! It was that or ‘Moon Beam’ that couldn’t have possibly been any more obvious. And for your information, I’m just being myself,” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Stop doing that, we don’t need you to be like you right now, try to be more like Fluttershy! Fluttershy is what we need right now,” Luna said.
“Do you mean before, or after she started killing people and feeding their organs to a filly version of your sister?” Vinyl said. “You really should be more specific.”
Luna facehoofed, causing Vinyl Scratch to grin brightly at her.
“Besides, what’s Monty going to do? Disconnect the train cars?” Vinyl asked. Luna did not reply.
A few hours into the train ride, Monty had still not returned. They were two hours away from their destination of Arrernte Springs when something caught Luna’s eye. She looked out the window to see Monty Ulan outside on the gang planks between the cars, fiddling with something. Whatever he was trying to do was a success, they felt the whole car shutter, and begin to slow.
“Luna what’s going on?” Vinyl asked.
Luna watched as the car that Monty Ulan was on sped away from them, while the car they were in began to slow down. Luna facehoofed again.
“He disconnected the train cars,” Luna said.
“He’s a clever one!” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Can you please stop doing that? You do realise he just stranded us in the middle of nowhere?” Luna said.
“Could be worse, he could have stranded a bunch of other people with us!” Vinyl said enthusiastically.
They had taken a seat in the back most cars; it was smaller than the others and had been practically empty save for the two of them. The only car behind them was the caboose, which held the train’s breaks, and was also currently empty, as the conductor had taken Monty up to another car.
“You know, now that I think about it? It’s kind of worse for the people in the other cars. They don’t have any way to stop the train now,” Vinyl said, unfortunately, there wasn’t really anything they could do about it.
The train car slid to a halt. The train was long gone at this point, looked as if they wanted to go anywhere, they’d be walking.
“At least we’re not lugging anything important with us,” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Except for the artefact,” Luna said, looking at her bulging saddlebags under her coat.
Vinyl shuddered at the mention of the artefact. It was at this point that Luna realised that Vinyl had been acting even more like herself than usual, trying to cover up how she was truly feeling. The loss of her sight had hit her hard, even though she’d never admit it. Vinyl Scratch was pretending as if nothing was wrong.
She was eerily good at it.
After obtaining all the water that they could find, Princess Luna and Vinyl Scratch started to walk, by best estimates, Arrernte Springs was a week away on hoof.
“Let me know if we pass any cacti,” Vinyl asked. “We can get water from them, I’d really, really hate to be the idiot stranded in the desert not knowing about that!”
...
The sun shone brightly overhead as the day went on, Luna figured it was about noonish, though she couldn’t be sure. That was something Tia would know. Vinyl Scratch had been quiet for most of the two hours that they’d been walking. The landscape was vast and wide open, and incredibly flat, no visible land marks could be seen for maybe a hundred or so kilometres, with the exception of a pile of large rocks on a small plateau.
Luna could tell that Vinyl was lost, without her eye sight, things were much more difficult for her. When she had first lost her eye sight, she relied on other ponies to help her around, though on the month long cruise to South Island, she’d found away to use her magic like a sort of radar to help her navigate. Unfortunately, in the vast open desert, there were very few things to ping off of. It was distressing the unicorn greatly, Luna could tell just by looking at her, though she was too proud to admit it, and Luna didn’t know what to say to comfort her.
Luna felt bad; Vinyl Scratch didn’t deserve the fate that had been handed to her. She was a good pony, regardless of how much she beat herself up over things.
Luna had also noticed that while travelling with Vinyl, she had the tendency to want to pull all the hardship possible away from others and onto her. It was almost if she wanted to have bad things happen to her, for the sole purpose of keeping them from happening to others. The idea was noble, sure, but horribly misguided. Luna had learned that despite the smile she often wore on her face, and her playfulness, Vinyl Scratch was sad on the inside.
It broke Luna’s heart to have figured all this out, she’d only wished she’d learned sooner, but what she wanted more was to know what she could say that would help.
Vinyl stopped dead in her tracks, her ears began to twitch. “You hear that?” she asked.
“No,” Luna said. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Vinyl said with a shrug. “Whatever it is, it’s moving really fast and headed right towards us.”
Luna began to hear it too; she turned around and headed straight for them was...
Well Luna didn’t exactly know what it was, it was too far away, then it began to get closer, and she began to recognise it. It was an armoured car.
The only reason that Luna knew that by seeing photographs of Ambassador Hadrian Goyle, the South Island Ambassador to Equestria, when he’d been in their military, most of the pictures of him were in front of such a vehicle.
The armoured car rolled to a stop several dozen metres from where the two ponies were standing; there was a kangaroo with his head poking out of the armoured car’s turret, looking at them intensely.
“Vinyl Scratch? Is that you?”
Chapter 3
“Vinyl Scratch? Is that you?”
Vinyl could only grin at the sound of the voice she heard, she remembered that voice, just as clearly as the day she had first met him.
“Benjamin Willoughby!” Vinyl called out.
Willoughby climbed out of the top of the armoured car and crossed over to where the two mares were standing, he grasped Vinyl, giving her the biggest hug he possibly could. “Am I glad to see you!”
Willoughby smiled at the two mares before him, but turned back around to face the armoured car. “Duffy! You moron! These are ponies!”
Another kangaroo poked his head out of the top of the armoured car and shrugged. “Hey, at least I got the number of legs right,” he said before ducking himself back inside.
“Willoughby? How... how do you remember me?” Vinyl asked. “I changed the world!”
Willoughby shrugged. “Elements of my regiment, The Royal Kingsland Fusiliers, were assigned to protect an archæological dig site in the Northern Protectorate, it was easy work, just stand around all day and keep the excavators out of trouble, until one day, I had to piss something terrible, so I went... that’s when I found it, this odd little statue of a unicorn. I was pretty far away from the main dig site, so I gently picked it up and gave it a look over, that was when I started to remember, little things at first, like being on the inside of a tank. Which was odd, because I joined an infantry regiment this time around, not armoured cavalry. I shrugged it off, and decided that Professor Tebbs would want to see it. So I started hopping back, along the way, I started to remember more. By the time I got back to camp, all my memories had come back. I saw Tebbs and I actually saluted him! He was confused of course because he didn’t join the military this time around, I showed him the statue and he got really excited and told me to get it bundled up and ready for shipping, I did as I was told, and next thing I know, it’s in a shipping crate bound for Warrene.”
Princess Luna opened her saddlebag and brought out the artefact that she was carrying, showing it to Willoughby. “Is this the statue that you found?”
Willoughby only needed to look at it for a second. “That’s the one! What are you doing with it?”
“We’re taking it back to where you found it. Where it belongs, I think you understand why. This artefact gave you your memories back, which makes it dangerous for certain people to posses,” Luna said.
Willoughby nodded. “I remember that bomb going off, if that statue is anywhere near that powerful; then say no more. Let’s go put it back.”
Vinyl smiled at the kangaroo in front of her, “I always knew that I could count on you Benny-boy!” She leaned forward in order to nuzzle the kangaroo, however, with her lack of sight, she misjudged the distance that he was in relation to her, and found herself falling flat on her face.
“Vinyl!” Willoughby called out; he leaned down to help her up. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“I’m FINE!” Vinyl snapped at him, pushing him off her and getting herself to her hooves.
“The artefact’s defences robbed her of her eyesight,” Luna explained. “She’s blind.”
“Vinyl...” Willoughby said. “I’m so sorry...”
“It’s fine,” Vinyl said, forcing a grin. “Do worry about it, I’m over it.”
Willoughby could tell that she was lying through her teeth, but he chose not to say anything. Despite the mare’s cheery outward appearance, she was hurting on the inside. Vinyl Scratch was his friend, but Willoughby didn’t know how to help her.
“Well, obviously our next step is getting that artefact back where it...” Willoughby said, his voice trailing off. His ears began to twitch slightly. “You hear that?”
Vinyl’s ears began twitching as well. “Yeah, what is it?”
Willoughby looked to the east, several hundred metres towards the rocky plateau; the sole landmark in several hundred kilometres of desert.
“Oi? What the bloody hell is going on out here?” the kangaroo called Duffy called out, poking his head out from the top hatch.
Crack!
A shot rang out, hitting Duffy in the chest and causing him to tumble out of the armoured car.
“Dingoes!” Willoughby called out; he brought his rifle to bear and fired a shot back towards the plateau, turning the bolt to ready itself for another shot. “Everyone into the car!”
Luna and Vinyl scrambled into the top hatch of the armoured car, taking cover where it was most safe.
“South Island is supposed to be a nice place!” Luna called out to Willoughby. “What happened?”
“It is! The Outback is a little inhospitable though,” Willoughby called back; he had climbed inside as well and was in the process of unbuttoning the armoured car’s autocannon. “This is going to get loud!”
Pom. Pom. Pom!
Vinyl crawled into the driving compartment of the armoured car and started fiddling with the controls.
“What are you doing?” Luna asked her.
Vinyl only grinned at her when she started the engine.
“How do you know how to do all that?” Luna cried out in surprise.
“Comes from sitting on my butt all day spinning records!” Vinyl said sheepishly as she through the armoured car into gear.
“You... you’re not going to try and drive this thing are you?” Luna asked in surprise.
“What does it look like I’m doing?” Vinyl asked,
“Vinyl! You can’t see!” Luna exclaimed
“Flat, open landscape for a hundred kilometres around! We’ll be fine.” She said, and stamped her hoof down on the accelerator.
The armoured car flew forward, accelerating rapidly away from the plateau and the dingo raiders.
Luna pulled the restraints of the co-driver’s position over her; she was in a full out panic.
Vinyl however, was laughing, the wind blowing though her mane through the open view ports, she had never felt more alive in her entire life.
“YOU’RE INSANE!” Luna shouted at her unicorn companion.
“I know! Isn’t it awesome!?” Vinyl called back with a grin, doing her best to keep the armoured car on a straight course north.
Vinyl drove for about ten minutes when she took her hoof off the accelerator and allowed the armoured car to slow; she didn’t bother breaking, simply allowing the car to coast to a stop. She turned off the engine and grinned widely at Princess Luna. “Told you we’d be fine!”
Luna did not reply, her eyes had narrowed and she was panting heavily, gripping the restraints tightly in fear.
Willoughby brought himself back inside the armoured car. “Where did you learn to drive p...?” Willoughby froze in place when he realised that it was not Princess Luna in the driver’s seat, but Vinyl Scratch. She turned back and gave him a wide grin. “How...?”
“Large open space with no major landmarks anywhere nearby to run into, sort of bumpy, probably ran over a cactus or two, but other than that, wasn’t too hard,” Vinyl said with a grin. “Car’s own weight helped.”
“You’re insane Vinyl Scratch,” Willoughby said, shaking his head.
“I know, isn’t it awesome?” Vinyl said with a grin.
...
The trio made camp that night, starting a fire and leaning against the armoured car.
“I’m sorry about your compatriot,” Luna said towards Willoughby.
“Duffy? Yeah, he was a good jack,” Willoughby said with a sigh. “South Island’s got a bit of a Dingo problem in the Outback, now that they’ve obtained and learned how to work Schäferhund Storm Harnesses, small packs of raiders like to go after isolated homesteads, they leave bigger settlements alone, and that’s why we were out here, Duffy and me.”
“Storm Harness?” Luna asked.
“Yeah, the Schäferhund walk on four legs just like you do, so it’s kind of hard for them to use a gun effectively, so they take two of their automatic rifles, ‘storm rifles’ and attach them to a harness and bight down on a control yoke with their mouths to fire. Storm harnesses will support just about everything, pistol, rifle, anti-tank rockets. Dingos only have the first two, fortunately,” Willoughby said with a shrug. “There are isolated raider bands of Dingoes all over the outback, so my company was outfitted with armoured cars and we drive around looking for them.”
“You’ll still be able to help us, won’t you?” Vinyl asked.
“Absolutely! I’d never leave my friends alone in the Outback!” Willoughby said. “I’ll drive you to the place where I found the artefact tomorrow. Note how I said I’ll be driving. You, Vinyl Scratch, will be sitting in the back as far away from the controls as you possibly can be.”
“Aww, you suck!” Vinyl said with mock disappointment. She grinned brightly at her companions, and they all allowed themselves a small laugh.
Chapter 4
Night had fallen in South Island. Princess Luna looked up at the night sky. The night felt... strange. Western South Island was twelve hours ahead of Canterlot Province time. She had no control here. What really bothered her were the stars. They were not ones that she was familiar with, in the sense that she rarely, if ever, looked upon them.
Crux, the Southern Cross was one such constellation. It was not visible to the ponies of Equestria. They were too far north. Luna had not seen it since her return from the moon. Even then, it wasn’t quite her who had seen it last.
Things had been different this time around. Luna had forced herself to become Nightmare Moon. With no Nightmare Essence to possess her, it shouldn’t have happened at all, but without Nightmare Moon, history would not suffer as it had, but at a terrible cost, a cost that was too high a price for the greater good to justify.
Without Nightmare Moon, Twilight Sparkle would have gone on living, completely ignorant of how important friendship was. Luna had sacrificed herself, enduring the memories of not only one, but two, thousand long exiles on the moon, so that Twilight Sparkle would have friends, a high price for something that some ponies in Equestria would deem insignificant, but a price worth paying nonetheless.
Luna turned her head away from the night sky, she looked to the fire that the ponies and their kangaroo companion had built, it was about to burn out. Fusilier Willoughby was asleep on his bedroll, his Emerald Rifle in arms, and his Brodie helmet over his eyes. For someone ordinarily so alert, he was fast asleep.
She turned to Vinyl Scratch and looked her over. She was lying still on her bedroll. To the eye of any other, she would have looked as if she too was asleep. Luna, however was the Princess of the Night, she knew when ponies were actually asleep.
“You’re not asleep,” Luna said to Vinyl. “You’re just pretending.”
“Am I that obvious?” Vinyl asked, perking her head up.
“No. I just know,” Luna said as she sat down next to her. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes,” Vinyl said, laying her head back down. She was lying, and it was obvious.
“No it isn’t,” Luna said, she spread her wing and placed it over Vinyl’s back, trying to comfort her unicorn companion. “You know what I think?”
“Go ahead and tell me, because you’re going to even if I tell you I don’t want to hear it,” Vinyl said.
“I think that today I saw your real personality. You felt like you for the first time in a very long while,” Luna said. “Everything before that, you were hiding behind a mask of the real you, inside you struggled to keep up appearances.”
“It’s a novel theory,” Vinyl said. “What’s your point?”
“That there is something that’s been troubling you for a very, very long time. Before you lost your eyesight, maybe even before you set off the bomb,” Luna said.
Vinyl grunted an answer.
“Vinyl, please. Tell me what’s really been bothering you,” Luna asked.
“Why? Who cares? Certainly not my friends, my real friends don’t even remember me, everyone else who called me their friend was either in it for sex, drugs, or alcohol.” Vinyl said, she sat up and slid the goggles off her eyes. Her soft red eyes shining brightly in the moon light as she looked at the Princess.
“Tell me something Princess, if this second chance of yours is supposed to be better for everyone, how come I want everything to go back to the way it was?” Vinyl asked. “I was happy! I had friends! I had a little sister who looked up to me, who loved me! I loved her! And then it all gets taken away from me, and I wake up cold and alone in Whitetail Wood, incredibly hung over because I clearly made the same poor choices I did in my old life. It’s not fair!”
Vinyl angrily swiped a hoof at the ground, kicking up a rock and sending it flying away from their camp.
“The new world can’t all be bad,” Luna said, trying to console her unicorn companion.
“No, not all bad,” Vinyl said, thinking of the brief time that she had spent with Derpy Hooves. “But the good doesn’t always cancel out the bad.”
Luna frowned, despite Vinyl Scratch’s cheerful and upbeat appearances, the mare was clearly hurting a lot more than she had thought. “Do... do you really desire to put the world back the way it was?”
“Yes,” Vinyl said with a nod.
Luna frowned again; she opened her saddlebag and placed the unicorn statue at Vinyl’s hooves. “All right then. I’ve placed the artefact in front of you. Go ahead.”
Vinyl looked down to where she approximately thought the artefact would be; she prodded it with a hoof to make sure it was actually there, it was. She looked back at Princess Luna in confusion. It had to have been a trick; there was no way that the Princess would let her undo this.
“Go ahead,” Luna said simply. “If you want to put the world back the way it was, wish for it. The choice, and its consequences, is yours to make.”
Vinyl stared blankly at the statue for several minutes; she knew that the familial bond she had formed with Scootaloo could be hers again. Twilight Sparkle would remember her. She could be important, she could be special again... but then she thought about everything else.
In the old world, South Island and Equestria were at war with the Twin Gryphon Kingdoms. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were dead, Princess Celestia was dead; Ponyville had been abandoned. Surprise had been right behind her threatening the lives of Scootaloo and herself. Could she really do it? Could she really be that selfish as to put the world back to that horrible state just so that she could feel better about herself?
Yes, yes I could. She thought to herself. She picked the artefact up in her hooves, raising it towards the sky, and readied herself to make the wish.
She froze in that position, she wanted to wish for it, she wanted it more than anything else. She wanted to be loved; she wanted to be with Scootaloo again, more than anything in the world. Tears formed in the unicorn mare’s eyes, rolling down her face and dropping into the clay soil.
Vinyl Scratch dropped the artefact, it landed softly on her bedroll below her, and she buried herself in her hooves, sobbing quietly. She couldn’t bring herself to do it. This world was better for everyone else. She couldn’t be selfish about it, no matter how much she wanted to be.
Luna pulled the unicorn mare close, embracing her tightly and allowing her to cry in her shoulder. She looked back over to the bedroll that Fusilier Willoughby was occupying, he was still sound asleep, though Luna had no idea how.
“Tell me I made the right choice Princess,” Vinyl managed between sobs. “Tell me I did the right thing.”
“I think you did the right thing Vinyl Scratch,” Luna said, hugging the mare before her. “It’s not hard to fight the temptations of our hearts desire.”
Vinyl Scratch continued to cry until no more tears would come. The sun began to rise. Soon enough, it would be night in Equestria. Princess Luna returned the artefact to her saddlebags, today; they would be placing it back where it belonged.
Fusilier Willoughby rose from his slumber and made breakfast, Luna made several attempts to gauge whether or not he’d actually been asleep. She may have been the Princess of the Night, but she was the princess of the night of Equestria, not South Island. There was a possibility that he’d been awake the entire time and she just hadn’t been able to tell. If Willoughby had overheard the talk that Luna and Vinyl had had during the night, he did not show it.
“Hope you like assorted Outback grasses!” Willoughby said, presenting the meal. “I’d hate to subject my friends to the atrocious contents of Combat Rations One Jack.”
Vinyl and Luna accepted them graciously, they were both hungry after the long night they’d had last night.
“We should get moving soon. Terrain gets pretty rocky as we get closer to Karlu Karlu, I’ll be slow going, and I want to stay off the roads,” Willoughby said.
“I agree, I’d prefer it if we attracted as little attention as possible,” Luna said.
“Might be an issue when we get close, there’s an army depot, scant kilometres from the place where I found the artefact. They’re going to wonder what I’m doing there,” Willoughby said.
“We’ll think of something,” Vinyl said with a slight grin forming on her face. “We’ve got time.”
Luna smiled back at the mare before her. Maybe it wasn’t a full out smile, but she could tell that grin that Vinyl was wearing was real.
Chapter 5
The armoured car bucked and bounced over the terrain, it had been nearly an hour after they’d crossed the borders between Western South Island, and into the rockier, and remote Northern Protectorate. Fusilier Willoughby sat in the driver’s seat, to his left, in the co-driver’s spot sat Vinyl Scratch. Princess Luna was behind them, poking out of the top hatch keeping an eye on the land behind them, which Willoughby couldn’t see.
“So?” Vinyl asked, turning to Willoughby. “How are you?”
Willoughby raised an eyebrow at the question. “I’m fine?”
“Cool,” Vinyl said with a grin. “How’d you sleep last night?”
“Pretty good actually, slept through the entire night,” Willoughby said, unsure of where Vinyl was going with the line of questioning.
“Glad to hear it,” she said, turning back forward.
Willoughby was confused to say the least, but said nothing, and continued to drive.
Vinyl was satisfied that he had not been listening to her and Princess Luna’s talk last night. “Willoughby? Do you think I’m pretty?”
“I... what?” Willoughby said, being caught completely off guard by the question. “I... sure? I guess, for a pony.”
“Cool,” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Are you trying to make me feel uncomfortable for your own amusement?” Willoughby asked. “Because if you are, it’s working.”
“I’m bored and there’s nothing to look at,” Vinyl said with a shrug.
“I’m... sorry, that you lost your sight,” Willoughby said.
“It’s cool, it was ether going to be me or Twilight, better off me,” Vinyl said.
Willoughby frowned, regretting bringing it up at all, and decided to change. “How is everyone? Derpy, Lyra, Bon Bon, Big McIntosh, Braeburn, and Trixie?”
“Lyra and Bon Bon were fine before I left. Derpy and I... are kind of together now. I saw Big McIntosh once, delivering Apples somewhere. I think Braeburn is in Appleoosa... and as far as I can tell, Trixie disappeared off the face of the planet, nopony had heard from her in nearly a year... and I don’t think they wanted to,” Vinyl said.
“Why not? She seemed pleasant enough,” Willoughby said.
“I’d agree, but apparently she wasn’t always...” Vinyl did not get a chance to finish her sentence, as the armoured car hit something causing it to jolt around, smacking the unicorn’s head against the metal interior of the car with a loud crack!
Crunch!
Willoughby felt the suspension of the armoured car give way, grinding the bottom of the car against the ground and skidding to a halt. Princess Luna lost her balance and fell back inside the car, landing hard on the metal floor plates.
“Bloody hell!” Willoughby called out in frustration. “Everyone all right?”
Vinyl Scratch groaned in pain from Willoughby’s left, she was clutching her head, a slight trickle of blood flowed from where she had smacked her head. “Why does it always have to be the head? Just once, can’t it be something not useful? Like the spleen?”
“I’m fine,” Luna said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know yet, Princess, could you take a look in front of us from the top hatch? See if you can’t see what we hit?” Willoughby asked.
“Of course,” Luna said as she crawled up and poked her head out of the top hatch. “I don’t see what we hit... there’s a little white sign a few metres behind us though.”
“Little... white... sign?” Willoughby asked, a look of horror forming on his face. “Crap! How did I not see that?!”
“What’s wrong?” Vinyl asked.
“I know what we hit,” Willoughby said. “We hit a landmine.”
“A landmine?” Vinyl asked.
“You know, little bits of explosives that are buried in the ground, when someone or something goes over them, boom!” Willoughby explained.
“I know what a landmine is Benny,” Vinyl said with annoyance in her voice.
Willoughby did not respond. He climbed out of the driver’s seat and climbed out of the top of the armoured car; he pulled a pair of binoculars out of his vest and began looking towards the northeast.
“Lovely, ‘mine clearing in progress,’ Looks like you missed one!” Willoughby called out in frustration. “Everybody out! We’re walking the rest of the way.”
“But, these landmines...” Luna began to protest.
“Don’t exactly have any other choices, we can’t just burry the artefact anywhere we damn well please, and going back the way we came isn’t an option,” Willoughby said. “We stick to the canyon wall and follow it as far as it goes. We’ll figure out what to do from there.”
Luna hopped off the armoured car and turned back towards it. She could only watch as Vinyl Scratch struggled to make her way out of the car, she lost her balance and tumbled off, landing hard on her flank.
“Princess Luna? The universe has an odd sense of humour,” Vinyl said.
“So do you,” Princess Luna mused as she helped the unicorn to her hooves.
“Yeah, but my sense of humour isn’t as cruel,” Vinyl said simply.
Willoughby looked around; He’d been riding along a rock formation for the last few kilometres and knew that it would be safe to follow. CSI had placed landmines all across the Outback years ago, severing several key areas from being accessible with each other. Thirty years ago, when it had looked like open war was going to break out between South Island and her allies and the Twin Gryphon Kingdoms, minefields separating the Northern Protectorate from Western South Island and Kingsland had seemed like a good idea. After all, nobody lived out here to wander into them. Then, Princess Celestia of Equestria had managed to negotiate a peaceful solution to the problems at hand then. Then, come present day, or at least, last year, the new Liberal Government of South Island declared that the minefields should be removed.
Of course, even if they hadn’t been removed, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Willoughby was a soldier. He knew the pattern; he could guide even a blind person through with no issue, which was fortunate for him, because that was exactly what he had to do. The trio stayed along the ridge, where it would be safer to travel. These minefields had been put into place to stop tanks, not people; there wouldn’t have been a point in that, since gryphons fly.
They spent several long hours following the ridge; both Vinyl Scratch and Luna were silent the entire time, as if they were afraid to speak, for fear of getting Willoughby distracted. He could understand the ponies’ uneasiness; after all, here they were, out in the South Island Outback, completely unfamiliar with the lay of the land. It had to have been a big deal for them. After all, the ponies of Equestria left their homeland rarely, even in this new world.
The sun began to set again, soon they’d have to stop and make camp. Willoughby had taken as much as he could in the way of food and survivalist gear from the wreck of the armoured car. Couldn’t exactly go looking for food, the field may have been marked as cleared, but that didn’t mean that they all got picked up, obviously.
Willoughby tended to Vinyl Scratch’s wound, changing the bandage on her head, he smiled at the mare while he did his work, becoming disappointed when he got no reaction from it, and kicking himself upon remembering her lack of sight.
He’d lied to her this morning, when she asked him how he’d slept. He’d been awake during the time Vinyl had her break down. When she had tried to change the world, he didn’t dare interrupt it. To be perfectly honest, Willoughby would have been fine with the world going back to the way it was. As Trooper Willoughby, he had direction in his life; he knew exactly what he needed to do. Fusilier Willoughby wasn’t quite so sure. He missed the crew he rode with. He didn’t even know where Stephen McNair and Armando Vickers were. Not that he would have tried to contact them. They wouldn’t have remembered.
“Should we be burying the artefact?” Willoughby asked finally. “Is it really the right thing to do?”
Both mares’ heads shot up in surprise at the idea.
“What would you have us do with it?” Luna asked.
Willoughby thought about it for a moment, the more he thought about it, he really didn’t want the world to go back to the way it was. What he did want was for the people he’d served with, his friends, to remember him.
“I want to find all my old friends and bring their memories back,” Willoughby said. Not only did he want his former crew mates back, but his friends in Equestria as well.
Luna bit her lip, she was afraid that someone would have suggested that. “We can’t.”
“Why not? Everyone who does remember is fine,” Willoughby said.
“Yes, but not everyone is cut out to remember,” Luna said. “Could you imagine; what would it be like for Rainbow Dash if she remembered? The shock of remembering her death might just kill her again. What of the police ponies who were butchered? What would happen if they remembered?”
Vinyl Scratch nodded in agreement. “Luna’s right Benny, as much as I would want my friends to remember me, the artefact is too dangerous. Some people just aren’t meant to remember.”
Vinyl put her foreleg around the kangaroo, sympathising with his plight.
“Sometimes, it’s just better to forget.”
Chapter 6
“Vinyl Scratch? Wake up!”
Vinyl’s eyes shot open, once again, seeing nothing and instilling a mild panic for a few seconds as she remembered why she saw nothing. You’d think that it was something she’d have gotten use to by now. Princess Luna was standing over her, shaking her awake.
“What? Princess Luna? What’s going on? Is it time for breakfast?” Vinyl asked, it felt far too early to be breakfast time.
“Vinyl, Willoughby is gone,” Luna said sadly. “He’s taken the artefact with him.”
“What?” Vinyl asked. She sat up and began tilting her head side to side, instinctively as if she was scanning the landscape for any sign of the kangaroo. Naturally, she came up short. “Why?” she asked again.
“He left a note,” Luna said, she cleared her throat and began to read it.
Princess Luna and Vinyl Scratch
Obviously, you’ve awoken and found me and your precious artefact missing. I’m sorry but I’m not going to just let you get rid of it. It’s too important for that. Don’t try to follow me, the minefield may have been marked as cleared, but that doesn’t mean that they got them all. I’ll be long gone by the time you see this. Don’t try to follow me! I mean it, I won’t have you two getting killed because I chose to do this. I’ve left you all the food I was carrying, you should be able to stretch it out long enough for a week if need be. I’ll come back for you after I’ve gotten everyone to remember.
-Please don’t follow me.
Benjamin Willoughby
“That idiot!” Vinyl called out in frustration. “Does he have any idea what he’s doing?!”
“He’s lonely, Vinyl Scratch, all of his friends are gone and don’t remember him,” Luna said. “Can you really blame him? Doesn’t it sound at all familiar to you?”
Vinyl looked down at the ground, guilt forming on her face. “Okay... yeah. Still! We can’t let him do it!”
“I agree, returning the memories of everyone in the world will be disastrous on so many levels,” Luna said. “But where would he go?”
“I remember him saying that there’s a military radar station near Karlu Karlu. If he was going to figure out how to get everyone’s memories back at once, he’d go there,” Vinyl said.
“Small problem: we don’t know how to get there,” Luna said. “Even if we did, we’re stuck in this mine field.”
“It’s never stopped me before!” Vinyl said, she rose to her hooves and began her horn began to glow. “I’m going to vibrate the ground, a couple metres in front of me while we walk, if we do run into any landmines, they’ll blow up before we get close enough for them to hurt us.”
Luna got up next to her; she unfolded her wing and wrapped it around the unicorn mare. “We’ll do it, together.”
The two mares began to walk along the course that Willoughby had taken them on the previous day, sweeping the land in front of them with sound waves as they walked. The constant magical use quickly exhausted the two mares, but they continued on their trek across the open countryside. Several hours of walking later, they finally reached white signs warning of the beginning of the minefield for those coming from the opposite direction. They had made it out of the danger zone, and once again, were relatively safe. Both of them were exhausted from the constant magical use, and decided that, even though they had only walked for two hours, that it would be best for them to make camp and recuperate. Unicorns weren’t meant to constantly use magic over any length of time, and as such, most unicorns’ stamina wasn’t the best.
They’d use this time to come up with a plan.
...
Several hours of rest later, they had decided to start walking, they reached the facility by nightfall. Luna had guided them up along the ridge above the facility, and bother of them were lying on the ground, they made themselves as small as possible to avoid being spotted.
Luna looked over and saw that Vinyl had pulled a pair of binoculars out from her saddlebag and was looking through them at the facility.
“Vinyl? You can’t see, why do you have binoculars?” Luna asked.
Vinyl did not reply at first, she continued to look forward, and then slowly turned her head towards the Princess of the Night. “Don’t screw with my method.”
“Give me those!” Luna said, and however begrudgingly Vinyl hoofed them over.
Luna examined the facility through the binoculars. The facility itself was one small building with several large radar dishes on the top of it. Oddly, the facility looked to be in disrepair, almost as if it had been abandoned, which would explain Willoughby’s choice to come here. Luna located a construction sign, reading it off, the ponies discovered that the facility was indeed abandoned, and scheduled for demolition. That was convenient.
Too convenient, but they didn’t have much of a choice, they had to go down there, and they had to stop Willoughby from carrying out his plan.
“Ready to go down there?” Luna asked her companion.
“Of course,” Vinyl said with a grin. “Operation: SUPERBALL is ago!”
Luna did a double take. “SUPERBALL?” She asked.
“SUPERBALL,” Vinyl repeated, her grin getting wider. “Problem?”
Luna sighed, but said nothing; the two mares rose from their hiding place and scampered down the hill towards the facility, moving as quickly as they could, the two mares ducked under a hole in the fence and continued to run head long towards the facilities main door. They must have tripped some kind of motion sensor, as alarms began to blare loudly all around them.
“Was SUPERBALL supposed to be sneaky?” Luna asked.
“Not really, Vinyl Scratch doesn’t do quiet!” Vinyl said with a grin. The two mares reached the door and slammed through it, bursting into the facilities interior, Luna bit down on Vinyl’s tail in order to stop her from running headlong into a wall.
“Didn’t I tell you ponies not to follow me?” the voice of Fusilier Willoughby came blaring over the loudspeakers.
“Did you expect us to listen?” Vinyl asked.
“No, I suppose not. Sorry Vinyl, but I’m not letting you ruin this for me! Not when I’m so close. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t come any deeper into the facility! I don’t want you to get hurt damn it!”
“You got a funny way of showing it Benny, leaving us alone in the middle of that minefield!” Vinyl said.
“STOP CALLING ME BENNY! You know I hate that name! Besides, you were never in any real danger. The minefield was cleared, and even if it hadn’t been, as long as you stuck to the ridge you’d have never stepped on one. Gryphons fly, so the minefield was for tanks. CSI leaves paths open for troops to pass through safely.”
“I’m going to come down there Willoughby, and when I get to you, I’m going to beat on your thick head until you realise just how stupid you’re being!” Vinyl said.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The loudspeakers shut off, from behind them; the two mares heard a large metal door drop from the ceiling, slamming down with tremendous force. Likewise, two bulkhead doors dropped on the hallways that lead out of the room. Vinyl Scratch and Princess Luna were trapped.
Vinyl went over to the bulkhead doors and felt them up. “We can melt through these doors. He’s got to know that.”
“That’s going to take time. Time that he can use to finish his work,” Luna said. “If we’re going to stop him, we’re going to need to find a way around them.”
Vinyl nodded in agreement. “Do you see any air vents in this room?”
Luna looked up, there was one that was on the far wall, leading in the same direction as the one they needed to go. “Yes.”
“Lift me up to it, I’m going in,” Vinyl said.
“Vinyl...” Luna began to protest, but was interrupted.
“I don’t need to be able to see to navigate through them. They’ll be dark anyway. Besides, Benny is my friend, and if anypony is going to be able to get him to stop, it’ll be me. It has to be me,” Vinyl said.
“All right,” Luna said. She spread her wings and went up to the air vent, and pulled the cover off. She picked Vinyl up and helped her into it.
“Would now be a bad time to mention I suffer from claustrophobia?” Vinyl asked with a grin, she was obviously kidding.
“Yes, yes it would. Now get in there before I change my mind!” Luna said with annoyance.
“Aye Aye princess!” Vinyl said, and with that, the mare disappeared into the air vents.
Chapter 7
Vinyl Scratch made her way through the air ducts, realising quickly that she had no idea where she was going. Even if she did manage to find her way, how was she going to know which one was the right way?
You’re just chock full of brilliant ideas today Vinyl Scratch.
Vinyl stopped, and listened, drowning out the background noise and listening for anything that she could use to help guide the way. She heard Willoughby’s voice, while she couldn’t make out the words, she continued onwards, following the sound of the kangaroo’s voice to its point of origin.
“Entry 15... Vinyl Scratch and Princess Luna followed me here, guess it shouldn’t be any big surprise, They don’t like what I’m doing... but I’ve got it figured out, I’m so close now! The unique properties of the artefact were oddly adaptive to our radio technology. Put it in as part of a radio circuit. It’ll broadcast the radiation over our radio frequencies... whoever made this thing really knew what they were doing...”
Vinyl knew she was getting close, now that he could hear Willoughby speaking clearly; it was only a matter of time before she found the right duct.
“You just went past it Vinyl Scratch,” Willoughby said through the air duct.
Sure enough, she backed up and pushed open the duct, crawling out of it and into the room that Willoughby was working in.
“That was nice of you, for someone who wants to bring back all the bad memories,” Vinyl said. “Things better forgotten!”
“You think what you’re doing is right. So do I,” Willoughby said. “You’re also at a severe disadvantage. I may be many things Vinyl, but I’m all for a fair fight.”
“Ben, please. As a friend I’m asking you to stop,” Vinyl said.
“No,” Willoughby said plainly. “I’m sorry Vinyl, but I can’t do that. I don’t have anybody! Everyone has forgotten me! Even you, my last friend left in the world is going to leave for Equestria after you get done with the artefact... I’m not going to be alone. Not again.”
“Ben...”
“STOP. Don’t call me Ben,” Willoughby said, Vinyl heard him pick up the artefact.
She frowned. “I’m sorry,” she enveloped her magic around the artefact, knowing full well what would happen when she did. Lightning arced out of the statue, conducting with both of them. Willoughby flew backwards, dropping the artefact on the ground, smashing it to pieces.
Vinyl too, was tossed backwards. She hit her head hard on the concrete wall and landed on the floor with a hard thump!
“Always... with the head...” Vinyl said as she passed out.
...
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Vinyl Scratch opened her eyes and found that she was lying in the middle of a large crater. She looked up at the open, blue sky and blinked. She noticed two things; first off, her goggles were missing off her head, as the sky was actually blue, and not the purplish tint that her goggles made the world look like.
The second thing that she noticed was that she could actually see it. She could see! Vinyl Scratch sat up, looking around and discovered that she could actually see! She looked at her foreleg and noticed that there was something attached to it. It was some kind of mechanical device, clipped tightly to her foreleg, it was ticking at her. The devices screen was measuring something, Vinyl Scratch looked closer. It was a radiation detector, and it was slowly ticking higher and higher. Vinyl scrambled to her hooves and pulled herself out of the crater. She was... in Ponyville?
She was in Ponyville. At least, she thought she was in Ponyville. The landscape around her looked as if Ponyville would if most of the buildings were destroyed. Which they were, what had happened here?
Vinyl looked at the device on her leg, it was still ticking; the whole area was bathed in radiation. The artefact had broken; she’d heard Willoughby drop it. This had to have been a result of that. She looked at the device again she raised her other hoof and began prodding at it, with luck; it might just do something else. It had a clock. Useful to some, Vinyl supposed, but not really much to her. It also had a map of the world, once again, useful to some, but not really much to her. That seemed to be it.
The radiation counter began to tick louder, Vinyl turned the click-wheel back to the radiation detector, and it was slowly ticking upward into the red “danger” zone. Right then, time to leave! She took off running, heading out of Ponyville and into Whitetail Wood. But it seemed that no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t get out of the radiation, the counter continued to tick.
A flash of bright light appeared in Vinyl’s eyes, causing the unicorn mare to trip. She felt incredibly sick. The world began spinning around and she shut her eyes tight to keep herself from vomiting. Vinyl dared a look at the radiation detector one last time. It had ticked all the way to the top of the gauge. She didn’t know what that meant for her, but she could only imagine it wasn’t good. She shut her eyes tight, and the world began to fade away.
...
Vinyl awoke, discovering to her disappointment that she was blind again. She felt her foreleg, the device was missing. She sat up and felt her head, she was bleeding slightly, but otherwise, she seemed to be fine. It had to have been a dream, or a hallucination caused by the trauma.
“Willoughby?” She called out, there was no reply. “Willoughby?” she called again. Still nothing, Vinyl Scratch began feeling around on the floor, looking for any sign of her friend as best she could. Soon enough, she felt her leg brush up against something. Further attempts at feeling discovered that she was right next to him. Vinyl pressed her head to his chest, hoping that his lungs would actually be there. After all, for all she knew, they could have been somewhere else. Willoughby was breathing, just unconscious.
“Willoughby?” Vinyl asked, gently prodding the kangaroo, hoping that he would awaken. He did not. “Willoughby?” Vinyl asked again, she shook the kangaroo more forcefully this time, hoping to arouse any kind of response. There was none. “Willoughby? I need you to wake up now!” Vinyl said, panic filling her voice and still gaining no response. She raised her hoof and brought it down upon him in frustration.
That did get a response. Willoughby shot back to consciousness, gasping for air. “Vinyl!” He called out. “You... you were right! I was making a big mistake!”
“I tried telling you, moron!” Vinyl said, giving the kangaroo a hug. “What did you see?”
“I... I saw South Island, on fire. Everything was burning!” Willoughby said. “Was... was that the old world?”
“I don’t know Benny,” Vinyl said. “I don’t know.”
...
Willoughby withdrew the complex’s blast doors, the unicorn mare and her kangaroo companion rejoined with Princess Luna. Vinyl could only grin at her.
“And you thought Operation: SUPERBALL was crazy!” Vinyl said.
“SUPERBALL?” Willoughby asked.
“SUPERBALL,” Vinyl said, grinning widely. “Problem?”
Luna ignored the comment and got down to business. “The artefact? Where is it?”
“Destroyed,” Vinyl said. “Benny didn’t give me much choice, so I charged it with magic, and it hit us both with lightning, he dropped it and it smashed on the floor... then we... went somewhere else.”
“The old world?” Luna asked.
“It was fucked-up enough to be,” Willoughby said with a shrug.
Luna frowned slightly, but figured it was better than nothing, with the artefact gone, at least this way it couldn’t be misused. “We shouldn’t stick around. We don’t want any more concentrated exposure to the radiation that we can avoid.”
All were in agreement; they departed from the facility without another word.
Willoughby was the last one out; he took a look back, thinking about what he was leaving behind.
He wished that he’d been able to make the right choice the first time.
Chapter 8
The trio had lugged as many spare parts and bits of scrap metal to the wreck of their armoured car. Willoughby was sure that he could do the suspension work well enough. He was no Stephen McNair, but he could manage. He had to; the armoured car was the only way that he was getting his friends back to Swan City. Apparently, the railway traffic had frozen completely across the entire country, after some crazy pony tourist disconnected the caboose from a train bound for Warrane, without the caboose, the train had no brakes, without brakes, it was rather difficult to stop. Willoughby mentioned it casually to Vinyl and Luna. They gave each other a series of looks, but offered up nothing else. The police hadn’t been able to catch him, and it was suspected that the unidentified perpetrator had skipped the country on a ship bound for Fetlevostok. At least, so he had heard; if so, the perpetrator was long gone. The lands of the Cossack Confederation were vast and endless. It was impossible to find anyone once they’d entered it.
Willoughby had spent most of the day underneath the armoured car, repairing the broken axel from running over the landmine. Everything else seemed to be fine, they’d gotten lucky, and had bashed up the middle row of tyres, which were unpowered, if necessary, they could go on without them.
Vinyl Scratch was lying on her stomach on her bedroll besides their makeshift camp next to the armoured car’s wreck. Her stomach was churning, and she felt as if she was going to vomit if she moved even a millimetre.
“Vinyl Scratch? Are you all right?” Princess Luna asked as she leaned down next to her companion. She placed her foreleg on Vinyl’s forehead, she had a fever. “You don’t look well.”
“What? No, Princess, I’m fine! Really, I’m just... tired,” Vinyl said with a smile. “It’s been an exhausting day, I just need...” Vinyl let out a loud yawn. “... a little sleep! That’s all.”
Luna looked at her companion, a look of worry forming on her face. Vinyl could somehow tell that the night princess was put on edge, and she did her best to try and assail her fears.
“I’ll be fine! I promise!” Vinyl said with a grin. “Don’t worry about me! Worry about Willoughby, make sure he’s drinking enough water.”
“I appreciate your concern Vinyl Scratch,” Willoughby called from underneath the armoured car. “But I think I would know how to survive in the Outback, don’t you?”
“Can’t be too careful Benny-boy, only two of us know how to drive, and I know that Princess Luna would object heavily to me doing it,” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Quite correct,” Luna said, she trotted over to the armoured car and slipped a canteen underneath the armoured car. Willoughby thanked her for it and took it in hand.
Vinyl felt incredibly dizzy, she was glad that she couldn’t see, because if she could, the world would have looked as if it was spinning, and she would have definitely vomited. She was starting to wonder if this had had anything to do with what she’d seen, no, that didn’t even make sense. She shook the through from her mind, realising that it was she that was probably suffering from dehydration. “Princess Luna? Could you give me some water, please?”
Luna obliged her and passed over a full canteen, which Vinyl Scratch downed in ten seconds flat.
“Ahh,” Vinyl said, licking her lips for the excess moisture. “Much better!”
“Are you sure that you’re all right Vinyl Scratch?” Luna asked her.
“I’m sure princess, thank you for your concern, but I’ll be fine. I just need a nap,” Vinyl said, she set her head down on the bedroll’s pillow, and closed her eyes. Not that she noticed a difference between the two, and soon found herself drifting off to sleep.
...
She was dreaming; she had to be dreaming, because she could see. What was it that she could see? Vinyl Scratch was trotting down a busy Manehattan sidewalk, it was night time, but that didn’t mean anything, Manehattan was well lit at night. Lights for clubs littered the street that she was walking down.
She spotted her prize; the muted grey earth pony wasn’t paying attention to what was going on behind her. It was perfect.
“Surprise Snuggles!” Vinyl Scratch called out as she tackled Octavia to the ground, nuzzling her with affection.
“Vinyl...” Octavia seethed at her. “Do you have to do this EVERY time you see me?”
“Yes!” Vinyl said with a grin. “Problem?”
Octavia groaned loudly, and Vinyl let her up. Octavia’s scowl quickly turned to a small smile. “Come here...” she said begrudgingly, embracing Vinyl Scratch in a tight hug.
In the back of her mind, Vinyl Scratch knew she was dreaming, but she was hardly aware of it. To be perfectly honest, she didn’t care. She hadn’t seen Octavia in an incredibly long time. Vinyl still had a lot of poor behaviour to apologise for in the real world... but right now, she was just happy to run with the dream.
“What are we doing tonight O?” Vinyl asked.
“I don’t suppose I can talk you into an evening at the concert hall?” Octavia asked.
“Oh I’m sure if you tired hard enough you could,” Vinyl said flirtatiously, flashing a bright grin at her best friend.
Octavia let out a loud, exaggerated sigh. “Nightclub it is then.”
“Aww you’re giving up that easily?” Vinyl said in mock disappointment.
“You know I don’t like mares like that, Vinyl,” Octavia reminded her.
“Oh come on, how would you know? You’ve never tried!” Vinyl said.
“Vinyl, I know you well enough to know that I will never try that little experiment with you,” Octavia said.
“Spoilsport!” Vinyl said, flashing a grin at her friend. Both of them began to smile and broke into a slight giggle. “Concert hall will be fine tonight, O.”
A look of mock horror appeared on Octavia’s face. “What’s this!? Vinyl Scratch is passing up a night at a club to listen to classical music!? What is this insanity?! Help! Police! This mare is an imposter!” Octavia couldn’t help but smile and both mares continued to giggle loudly at the situation.
In the back of her mind, Vinyl Scratch couldn’t help but feel a little sad, because this wasn’t something that happened. No, this experience was completely fictional, while Vinyl Scratch and Octavia were actually ‘friends.’ It had been a completely one-sided friendship, with Vinyl Scratch being the domineering personality and Octavia just went along with whatever Vinyl had decided in order to make sure that Vinyl didn’t die as a result from heavy drinking and drug use. The observer Vinyl felt a pang of guilt in her heart. This was how her friendship with Octavia should have been.
...
Vinyl Scratch awoke to the feeling of her stomach turning. She rose from her bedroll and dashed away from the camp, vomiting heavily several metres away from the campsite. It was probably night time now; the air was much cooler, though she supposed that she really had no way of knowing short of asking Benny or Luna.
She vomited several more times before she felt her stomach being empty, and she turned around and trotted back towards camp, dragging her hooves along so that she’d know when she came back to her bedroll.
“Vinyl? Are you okay?” Princess Luna asked, she must have been watching.
“Yeah! I’m fine! Don’t worry about me!” Vinyl said with a grin.
“Vinyl...” Luna began to protest, but was quickly cut off.
“Really Princess, I’ll be fine, I just didn’t drink enough water today. I’m going to drink some right now, and I’ll be back to my old, obnoxious self in the morning!” Vinyl said.
“I think I preferred her when she was sleeping,” Willoughby called from his place underneath the armoured car, which he was still apparently working on.
“Shut up Benny!” Vinyl said with a grin. “I mean that in the nicest way possible.”
...
Several hours later, Willoughby reported that he’d jury-rigged a new suspension system for the armoured car, they’d be fit to drive on towards Swan City in the morning, and they all decided to turn in. Vinyl Scratch had difficulties going to sleep, thanks to her earlier nap, which according to Luna had lasted some four odd hours.
“Vinyl?” Willoughby asked quietly, hoping not to wake Princess Luna.
“I’m awake, what’s up Benny?” Vinyl asked equally as quietly. She sat up and trotted over to Willoughby’s bedroll.
“I... just wanted to say that I’m sorry for what happened at the facility today,” Willoughby said, this was the second time he’d apologised for it, clearly, Vinyl thought, it was bothering him greatly.
“Hey, it’s not your fault! I know what that temptation is like!” Vinyl said as she put her foreleg around the kangaroo’s shoulder. “Trust me Benny, I get it. None of my friends remember me either.”
“It’s just... I was being so selfish, and you had to hurt yourself to get me to stop. What kind of person does that make me?” Willoughby asked.
“You’re a person with feelings, who wants to have people care about him. You and I are a lot alike you know,” Vinyl said. “Wipe that look of horror of your face! I know you have one!”
“You caught me,” Willoughby said with a smirk.
“I was lonely too before I came out here, and then we met you again! Just out of the blue! Do you know how nice that was?!” Vinyl said with a grin. “I was so happy to ‘see’ you, and you know what? Now we don’t have to be lonely anymore. Because even when I go back to Equestria, you’re going to write me, and I’m going to try and write you, then throw the parchment out because it’s an illegible mess and have somepony scribe for me.”
Willoughby couldn’t help but smirk. “Deal,” he said.
“Good! Because if you don’t write, I’m going to come back out here and kick the snot out of you! Do you know how embarrassing that would be for you? It would be pretty embarrassing!” Vinyl said grinning.
“I promise,” Willoughby said with a smirk.
“Good,” Vinyl said, she leaned in close and gave the kangaroo soldier a small kiss on the cheek. “You’re a good friend, Ben. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”
“You’re a good friend too, Vinyl Scratch. Don’t beat yourself up for things that happened in the past. You can fix them now,” Willoughby said, giving his friend a hug.
Vinyl returned the embrace; tears were forming in her eyes and collecting on the insides of her goggles. Likewise, she felt tears dropping off Willoughby’s face and onto her shoulder.
“We should try and get some sleep,” Willoughby suggested.
“Yeah, probably should,” Vinyl said, the two of them broke their embrace and Vinyl felt her way back to her bedroll. “Hey Ben?”
“Yes Vinyl?” Willoughby asked.
“You haven’t objected to me calling you Ben, at all since the artefact broke,” Vinyl commented.
“Yeah, I figure that I can make an exception for my best friend,” Willoughby said. “Goodnight Vinyl.”
Vinyl Scratch couldn’t help but smile back at him, she lay her head down upon her pillow and closed her eyes tight.
“Goodnight Benny.”
Epilogue
The darkness of the Everfree forest was usually too much for most of the inhabitants of Equestria. Zecora was not one of them. The Zebra mare trotted though the Everfree forest, her home for years since departing the Zebra homeland of Zhosa and its apartheid government. Despite being the homeland of zebra kind, ponies from the Kingdom of Welera had come and colonised the nation, integrating the zebra people into their empire, and establishing a pony controlled minority government. Zecora cared little for the state of affairs in her old home. She had no ties to Zhosa anymore, not since the passing of the grandmother some five years prior.
Now the zebra mare lived alone in the Everfree forest, of which, she was perfectly fine with. She’d been used to a life of seclusion even before departing the Afrikneigher controlled Zhosa.
Zecora heard a twig snap, setting her on edge. While she had been living in the Everfree forest for many years, it did not mean that she didn’t have to stay alert. It was a dangerous place, even for her. She listened closely, and heard the sound of someone, or something, whimpering. Whatever it was, they were hurt. Zecora drew a machete from its sheath at her flank, holding it in her teeth; she swung her head hard, cutting away at the thick foliage between her and the hurt creature. She was a healer, above all else, and she intended to help whatever she would find.
Zecora cleared the way and discovered what she was looking for. To her surprise, it was not an animal as she had originally thought, it was a pony. A white coated Pegasus with a straw yellow mane curled up in a ball, shivering intensely in pain.
Zecora approached the Pegasus mare gingerly, stepping on a twig and alerting the Pegasus to her visitor. The Pegasus looked up at the zebra, her blood red eyes shining in the darkness.
Zecora gave the Pegasus a smile. “My little pony, do not fear.” Zecora said, leaning down to the Pegasus’ level. “For a friend in Zecora has appeared.”
