It was midnight, the moon was shining and the stars sparkling. A small mouse scurried across the dirt floor of the candle lit bungalow. Zecora was standing motionless staring at a Calderon, counting, waiting. This has to be perfect, she though to herself while she was counting the seconds before she had to add the next ingredient. She had been working on this potion for over a month. After the incident with those stupid ponies, she could not risk messing up her potion again. The flowers that she tainted caused a huge brouhaha that set her back even farther by trying to create a cure for the clumsy ponies.
50...49...48... she waited... 47...46...45... she became excited. 20... she began to draw the special ingredient, a red strip of something that resembled gelatin, that she got from the pink pony Pinkamena out from a small vial.
Pinkie had gotten quite defensive when Zecora asked what it was. Pinkie said that magic things would happen when it was finished. The pink pony had apparently been working on this recipe for the potion even longer than she usually sets up for her greatest of parties, but would not tell the zebra what it actually did. All the striped horse knew was that if she made a mistake then there would be terrible and somewhat comical side-affects like last time.
Zecora became tense. This was the final step. the moment she had been waiting for. 5...4...3...2...1... splash! she dropped the red sliver of who knows what into her brew. She waited. If she had done her math right, she should be seeing results very soon. Nothing. She started to get angry.
“What the dong am i doing wrong?” she screamed, feeling rage and frustration build up inside of her. “I am the best potion brewer in all of the land! how could i have messed this up? I stayed extremely close to the plan!” She started knocking things around. She grabbed her pruning knife and threw it across the room. She snatched a nearby mallet and was swinging it at anything she thought she could break. She stopped, and sat breathing heavily. Her house looked like part of the ragged forest she was in. The partially insane Zebra walked slowly towards the cauldron, Preparing her hammer to swing. Her bloodshot eyes were locked on her brew. She raised her hammer high and let it down with all of her might. The mallet sped down towards the mix. As soon as the weapon touched the cauldron it exploded spraying everywhere.
The Gala was a huge failure as usual. Octavia slowly walked down the hallway carrying her Cello, her ears sagging down her dropped head. Vinyl Scratch was next to her carrying her DJ gear. “I really thought that with these new ponies here that this Gala would be at least a little fun” Octavia Mumbled to Vinyl. “ah” Vinyl responded, “Don’t worry about it, there will be plenty more parties that will be twice as sick as this hyped up party.” Octavia just nodded. They continued walking towards their carriage that they used to transport all of their gear.
The carriage ride back to ponyville was very solemn. To Vinyl it felt like a funeral.
“I really wish you weren't so depressed after every Gala Octavia!” exclaimed Vinyl. Octavia didn’t react, she just kept her head down feeling depressed. “I was just joking... jeez” said Vinyl apologetically.
“whats wrong? you seem even more depressed than last year!”
“nothing...”
“come on. something’s up”
“Nothing’s up...”
Vinyl swiftly snatched Octavia’s cello bow and began to bend it. “You tell me what’s up or I’ll snap it!” she teased. Octavia’s head shot up violently, flinging her sliky black hair behind her. “You wouldn’t dare!” Octavia pleaded. Vinyl bent it further “tell me!”. “I am doubting my skills as a musician!” Octavia said so fast that even a squirrel might not be able to register what she said.
Vinyl laughed, throwing Octavia’s bow back to her. “Are you HIGH?” she cackled. “Your the best cello player in all of Equestria! you’ve won award after award! how could you possibly doubt your musical skills?”. “I don’t know...” Octavia said halfheartedly “just whenever i play at the Gala in front of all those people no one turns, nobody seems to listen, nobody tips me...”
“Octavia... listen... I am the best mixer in all of Equestria right?”
“Right”
“And I asked YOU if I could do your soundboard for your live performance right?”
“Right...”
“Do you know why i wanted to work soundboard for you?”
“Because your my frie-”
“NO! its because you are the best musician in all of Equestria and I wanted the honor of being able to run YOUR soundboard!”
Octavia jumped on Vinyl embracing her. “Oh vinyl. You always know how to cheer me up” She beamed. The rest of the ride they spent talking to each other laughing about all of the comical events that took place that night. “Oh i guess this year wasn’t so bad” they said at the same time. They laughed together. Looking deep into each other’s eyes they started to draw closer. “You make me feel better” said Octavia soothingly. “And I like making you feel better” responded Vinyl. Octavia started to slowly lift Vinyl’s goggles off of her eyes. Her blood red eyes glinted in the moonlight. She had never seen her eyes before, neither has anypony else she thought, this must be why she wear these goggles all the time.
The two ponies got closer. Vinyl could smell the gray pony’s breath. it smelt of strawberries, and sugar. They drew closer, finally touching lips. Vinyl being the more daring of the two started to peek her tongue into the other pony’s mouth. Octavia was surprised and started blushing furiously, but returned the affection to the other pony despite her shyness. “WERE ALMOST THERE MADAM’S!” the stage coach driver yelled. The two ponies quickly broke apart each realizing what just took place, Octavia staring down and out of the window trying to hide her red face, and Vinyl sat readjusting her goggles,acting like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. THUNK! “What was that!?!” exclaimed Vinyl. “Oh Celestia! I think we hit someone!” Said the driver frantically. “I'm getting out to check” said Vinyl. Octavia was just sitting there stunned with the sudden change of events.
“Oh great Celestia!” The driver gasped. Lying there was a crumpled up was a crumpled Bonbon. Her previously snow white skin, was now completely blood red, her shoulder had a huge piece of flesh missing, and her cutie mark was faded to a light grey. Her greyed out cutie mark was the only piece of skin that was visible under the blanket of blood. Octavia, finally getting her wits straightened out, walked over to the scene of the crime, only to collapse as soon as she saw Bonbon. Vinyl swiftly darted towards her to catch her. The driver tore his eyes away from the mess that once was a very lively pony. “I know we hit her,” said the driver in disbelief “but we weren’t going that fast! We couldn’t have done all of this damage!”. Vinyl nodded. “No normal pony could walk with an injury like that, especially not a filly like Bonbon.” said Vinyl with a mix of scepticism and horror. “we’d better take her to Dr. Whooves back in Ponyville as soon as possible.” said the driver. “you will have to use your magic to carry her. Who knows what awful disease she could be carrying.” Vinyl agreed.
Vinyl carried Octavia back to the carriage and laid her down on the bench, her head resting on Vinyl’s lap. “I’m sure that Octavia would like where her head is right now.” Vinyl thought to herself, trying to take her mind off of the mutilated pony they had just encountered and focus on holding her up above the carriage. Very few ponies knew why Vinyl could keep her cool so easily when stressful situations came along. The truth that only a few ponies knew was that Vinyl had a life before Ponyville where she saw more things than anypony wanted to ever see in their lifetime. She had seen this before, the chunk of missing flesh, the faded cutie mark, she recognized all of this. She couldn’t believe this was happening again. She thought she had rid the world of the source of this dark magic. “I must have missed something” she thought.
About half an hour later Octavia woke up. “What happened?” she asked drowsily. “You just fell asleep” said Vinyl trying to keep her from losing consciousness again. “I just had a horrible dream that we hit somepony and killed them” said Octavia yawning. “It was just a nightmare” said Vinyl. “But some nightmares are more real than others” Vinyl thought to herself. She knew that Octavia would find out sooner or later that it wasn’t actually a dream, but she wanted her to relax for the rest of the ride home.Octavia was still laying her head on Vinyl’s lap. She slowly drifted back to sleep.
A few hours later they rode up to Dr. Whooves’s house. The driver whispered back to Vinyl “were here.” she nodded. “Go on in and tell the doctor what happened, I will be in soon.
“Hey, Octavia, Wake up.”
“hmmm?”
“Octavia, I have to go do something really quick. I need you to stay in the carriage while im in there alright?”
“alright...” Octavia yawned. falling back to sleep.
Vinyl slipped out from under Octavia’s head, resting her head on the seat. “That poor Pony,” she thought, “shes been on such an emotional roller coaster.”
She walked into the doctor’s office still carrying Bonbon with her magic and saw the driver explaining to Dr. Whooves what had taken place a few hours ago. As Vinyl walked towards them, Dr. Whooves turned and saw the mutilated body. He had seen worse; he was one of the few ponies that helped Vinyl on her adventures of a more complex life.
“Your friend told me all about what you both just experienced” said Dr. Whooves. “Good” said Vinyl, “Does it like last time?”
“it sure does Vinyl”
“So will be able to fix the problem in time?”
“I don’t know, i will need to do some test first. You go home and com back tomorrow, ill be able to tell you more tomorrow.”
“alright” said Vinyl “you take care doctor; ill see you tomorrow.” Vinyl and the driver started to walk back to the carriage. When they reached the door Dr. hooves called out to them “Be ready Vinyl, they might attack tonight.” She nodded. The driver had an extremely worried and confused face, but he heard the rumors about Vinyl and didn’t question her judgment. But he could tell that something dangerous was about to take place.
When Vinyl got back to the car Octavia was still sleeping. She must have gotten more upset than she thought.
The carriage ride to Vinyl’s house was uneventfully. it mainly consisted of Octavia sleeping and Vinyl occasionally stroking her mane. When they got to Vinyl’s house she woke up Octavia. “Your going to have to stay at my house tonight Octavia” Vinyl said softly after gently shaking Octavia awake. “That’s fine” she said too tired to wonder why. Vinyl carried Octavia to her house and lay her down on her bed.
Vinyl’s house was probably the most odd looking house in all of Ponyville. Each room had walls painted different colors. She had a DJ setup in every room ready for a potential party. In addition to light bulbs in many rooms she had UV lights and colored laser light. Under all of the sofas and mattresses she had super high powered sub woofers that if turned up all the way might crumble her house to the ground.
Vinyl walked to her CD storage room. A room filled with hundreds of shelves of music from punk to classical, screamo to lullabys, pop to Gothic, religious to satanic. If it was published she had it. whether she liked it or not she had it. She walked past all of the shelves to the wall in the back and pulled out one CD named “Of Blood and Pain”. She flipped it over and put it back into place. A secret door swooshed open and inside was a room she hoped she would never have to visit again.
On every wall was a different type of weapon. She had as much variety of weapons as she did music. She walked towards a mannequin that was wearing a tactical vest, a pair of blue night vision goggles, and in its hands were two vinyl disks that were made of pure such pure metal that it would make the Element of Harmony jealous. She took them off of the mannequin and started to take off her dress that Rarity had kindly made for her and put on her combat gear. As she was putting on her gear a flashback to her earlier life played, caused by the nostalgia of putting on gear.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” said a young Dr. Whooves “There might be another option.” “No doctor this is the only way. Even if there was another way we don’t have enough time to find it!” Vinyl said, having answered this question many times. The doctor was obviously realy worried about her. “And by the way, I will be fine” she said trying to calm him. “These zombies are no match for me. And besides Celestia gave me these awsome weapons! It would be a shame if they were never put to use!” This time Dr. Whooves didn’t object, he knew she was right. This was the only way to put an end to this zombie epidemic.
The only different this time around was that Dr. Whooves wasn’t there to tell her not too.
Vinyl made her way out of her secret lair and closed the door. She heard a scream. “Oh Celestia” she said under her breath. She galloped as fast as she could back to her room. The screaming growing louder, Vinyl ran faster. Thoughts were racing through her head, what if she didn’t get there soon enough? She finally reached her room. There standing at the foot of the bed was a zombie version of Applebloom, moaning, and shrieking. Vinyl took her metal record and sliced the little filly’s head clean off. “Your lessons in zombie killing starts now,” she said to Octavia, “Lesson one: the young ones are the easiest to kill. They are completely unaware of anypony else besides their target they have chosen.” Octavia was just staring at Vinly. “What have you done?!?!” she gasped. Vinyl sighed. “There are zombies attacking ponyville, and i just saved your life. Your welcome.” “Uhhhmmm... ARE YOU CRAZY!!!” Octavia screamed. “Octavia, I’m not making stuff up. Look at her flank.” she said. Octavia looked. On her flank was a grey cutiemark, the same design that was on Zecora. “So what?” said Octavia. “I don’t know if you remember, Octavia but Applebloom didn't have a cutie mark. When little fillies get infected they get the same cutie mark as the zombie that attacked her. By the way Octavia, you are taking this really well, why haven’t you started to try to avenge her?” Octavia looked into her eyes and said “I think you know why Vinyl.” She was right of course, Vinyl knew that Octavia loved her; But she wanted to hear it from her.
“Alright Vinyl, so whats the plan?” said Octavia. “Wait, what?” Vinyl responded in a hoghly confused manner, “Why aren’t you freaking out and demanding answers?” “I’ve heard about your adventures Vinyl.” Vinyl raised an eyebrow behind her goggles. “You think that nopony knows what your life used to be like. You are quite wrong actually, most ponies know why you always wear goggles among other things. The other reason that i’m not questioning what just happened is that i’m used to not asking questions from being in a orchestra since I was a little filly and in an orchestra you don’t ask the conductor why..”
“Great!” said Vinyl with a smile. “less explaining too do.” so the plan I’ve had is to find Zecora, that’s whose cutie mark was on apple bloom. so lets get you geared up and lets go.” They left the dead body there for the doctor to look at.
Vinyl led Octavia to her Weapon storage room. “So what kind of weaponry are you into?” Vinyl asked casually. “Well i was thinking about a shotgun.” Vinyl smiled. “Well i got the thing for you!” she said excitedly. She walked over to one of her shelves, opened a large drawer and pulled out a double barrel shotgun. This was no ordinary shotgun though, it not only had two barrels, but the barrel was in the shape of a sword and was so sharp that Octavia could hear it whistling as Vinyl swung it around. On the sides of the blade there was a hand engraved image of discord on it. “What does this engraving mean?” asked Octavia. “It represents all of the chaos that this weapon could cause.” Vinyl said with a tone that suggested that she had a good time with the gun at sometime in the past. “You’re not going to find a better shotgun for this situation than this” Vinyl said cutting off Octavia’s thoughts about this amazing gun. She carefully handed the weapon to Octavia. “Ya I think that this should do the job” Octavia said amused. “This thing could cut somepony by just looking at it too long!” she thought.
“Alright” said Vinyl, “your going to need some practice before we go out and demolish some zombies.” Octavia nodded still admiring the beautifully crafted shotgun. She whipped out her disks from the holder on her back. “Come at me brony!” she taunted “but no shooting yet. Leave the saftey on. “Alright” Octavia said, still not questioning Vinyl’s judgement.
She swung the her gun over her head and at Vinyl. Vinyl swiftly raised her metal disk and skillfully redirected the path of the blade, causing it too fly out of her hand and stabbing into the hard tile floor. “Your going to need to be more clever than that Octavia, them z’s can be trickey.” Vinyl said. “Come over here and practice your swinging on this dummy. I’m going out to ruin some zombies’ day” she said with cold humor. She nonchalantly walked out the door with no further explanation.
Octavia watched the white pony’s hips swing from side to side as she left the room. “That’s one fine pony” Octavia thought to herself.
Note from the Author.
Thank you for reading my Fanfiction! I really hope you enjoyed it, I put alot of work into it. The feedback i get on this chapter will determine whether or not i write a second chapter. One thing you have to keep in mind while giving feedback is that this is the first story I have written that is longer than one page, and my writing skills will get better with practice. I do not plan to proof read this chapter. but i will on the next.
May the horse be with you,
W1z4rD
