Decisions, decisions

Chapter 2
By TwinTurboDOHC

As my individual atoms rematerialised, I thought to myself, "What have I gotten myself into? Will Octavia be okay?" This was seriously freaky, a separate timeline where I choose academics? Why would I do that? I chose music-
"To answer your questions, Vinyl, you already payed the bits, so there's no backing out now. Octavia is fine. Finally, the chance between choosing music and academics was 50/50."
"How is it possible for us to be here?"
"All will become clear to you."
"I don't know about that. Everything has a magenta tinge at the moment." I said flapping my last shreds of ego at her in a halfhearted show of nonchalance. I saw Clair mentally facehoof.

Unlike last time, I didn't recognize this place. I went to look out of a plate glass window and had a sudden stab of vertigo. We were about twenty stories up. Looking around, this was some kind of administrative office block. It was seriously tricked out, there was a pool table, a ping pong table and not-very-minibar.

"Come, Vinyl." I followed her to what I guessed was the main conference room. I guessed right. Inside the room were ten black leather office chairs, each accompanied by a pony who was then accompanied by an expensive suit. I looked to the head of the table, and there I was. In my own suit and everything. Business me was looking intently at a nervous looking, middle-aged stallion holding a pie chart.

"So, erm, I mean, employee happiness is at an all time, er, high so we, er, as employees at scratch records would, er, I mean, erm..." He was dying out there, like me at my first proper gig.
"It's ok, Sharp. Take your time." Business me said. At least I was still nice.
"Well, erm..." He paused, a sudden determined look crossed his face. "You know what? Fuck you, boss! You and I both know this company is falling apart around your ears! Octavian enterprises destroyed-"
"Do NOT mention that name!" Business me thumped my hoof on the table.
"Oh yeah? Why the fuck not? Octavia! Octavia! Octavia! Your marefriend misses you!"
"Now." I said. The guard pulled a blow dart tube, loaded it and fired at the stallion. He screamed. He screamed and screamed until I thought my ears (me, music Vinyl) would explode.
"What the... aargh is it!?" He screeched. His whole body was slick with sweat.
"That? Oh, just a nerve toxin that inflicts severe whole body pain whilst keeping the victim from dying of shock and conscious, all at the same time." I said with infinite calmness, despite the piercing screams of the stallion. "Take him away." Two humongous guards walked over and carried the stallion out through a hidden door at the back of the room.

What I had just witnessed was the single most horrific sight of my life. His screams still echoed in my head and wrenched my soul. Clair was also visibly taken aback. I could never imagine being in that much pain. Business me was a soulless, heartless monster. Surely I could never be that cruel. I mean, even if I had chosen academics in real life, I was set to become a medical professional, not the CEO of a record company. Also, business me got really mad when Octavia was mentioned. Meaning that we must have had some kind of fight that resulted in me hating her.

This was too much to take in, but one thing was clear: I had to take down business me. I burst into the conference room and stormed towards myself. I suddenly started running. I flew across the smooth glass table, slid the last few feet and went in for a tackle. Except, I didn't. I flew straight through myself and landed with a hard thump on the floor. I sat up, confused.

Clair was by my side. "Two timelines won't mix. Therefor anything you do when you're with me, won't affect other timelines, including this one."
"Oh..." I said.
"Now, our time is up. We must leave now." I reluctantly got to my hooves. I felt all of my individual atoms fly apart and throw themselves through the fabric of time and space.

Half a second later, they reassembled in a tent in the Ponyville market. That was an experience, but was it a good one?
"Thank you Clair. That was, erm, fun? I guess?" said Octavia. "We'll just be off then, won't we Vinyl?" I nodded slightly. "Thanks, bye."

We exited the tent onto the busy market street. "Mine was boring, Vinyl. It was an alternate timeline where I had fries instead of a burger and got food poisoning. Is it some kind of message? Anyway, what was yours?" asked Octavia.
"I don't want to talk about it." I said moodily.
"Is something wrong? Do you want to talk about?"
"No, geez, get off my case, Octavia! No, I don't want to talk about it!" I snapped.
"Vinyl! Don't shout, ponies are watching."
"You know what? I'm going home."
"What about the record sta-"
"Just shut up and leave me alone!" I stormed off. Why did she have be so goddess damn nosey?

I flumped down on the couch in my living room. It was a particularly hard flump, so I yelped particularly loud when a pair of headphones stabbed me in the back. And broke.

I decided to listen to my radio, see if anything was on to suit my mood. I flipped from station to station but they were all happy songs thanking the pegasi for clearing the sky so well. I turned the radio off. I went upstairs to the library to try and find something to play.

My library was a spare room that I never used and was therefor the best place to store my records. I picked a shelf at random and started flipping through records at random. 'Greatest party anthems vol 1' nope. 'Greatest dance hits' no way. 'Heaviest beats vol 5' no! Easily more than one thousand records and I didn't have one to describe how I felt.

I felt really angry. How could I have it in me to be so completely heartless. This was stupid, "WHY CAN'T I FIND A SINGLE FUCKING RECORD! THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I'VE DONE SINCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!" In a rage, I threw 'The best club beats' over my shoulder towards the door. So I was surprised when there was a scream.

"Octavia! What are you doing here? I told you to go away!"
"Vinyl, when you're done playing frisbee with records, you need to come downstairs. You have some visitors here to see you."
"Fine, I'm coming."

I wandered downstairs after Octavia. "Surprise!" said all the ponies in my living room. This had to be a Pinkie party.
"Hey, there miss grumpy pants! We made you a party to celebrate!" She pointed to a banner over the fireplace. It said 'Happy wierd tent trip that we won't ask you about right now!' The writing got smaller towards the end as they had evidently run out of banner.
"Wow, er, I don't know what to say Pinkie." I rubbed the back of my head with my hoof.
"Niether do I, but it's usually good. Now get on those turntables! It would be a party without cool music would it?" She shunted me towards the turntables. How they got it set up so quickly I... still don't know.

Anyway, about five minutes later, the party was in full swing. Soon, more ponies arrived and party started spilling into the street as the sun set majestically over the horizon. The party continued late into the night and eventually wound to a close at about three in the morning, as the snacks and drinks had run out and all the shops were closed.

By the end I was feeling much better, had apologised to Octavia for acting so rude and embarrassingly in the market. "See ya next time Pinkie!" I said and closed the front door. "Phew. I'm exhausted."
"Irrelevent."
"Not really. Also, the party is officially fini-"
"Are you Vinyl Scratch?"
"The one and the only. Like I said before, parties ov-"
"Grab her." I turned around to run away, but I was met by a large bodyguard. He pulled out a cloth with his magic.
"Do I know you?" He pressed the cloth to my muzzle. "You're the..." I slipped into unconsciousness.