I was going to be first chair cellist for the Royal Canterlot Symphony. I was going to be the best in my field, the rich mares Sapphire Shores…
Yet, here I am running through the Everfree Forest away from a manticore… With a mare I’d met this morning… How is this my life?
“Tavi, so,” a slurp punctuated the speech “So help me... So help me, *urrp* if you don’t get your- your- your ass in gear, I will trip you!”
Next to me is the blue haired mare that I had allowed to move into my basement. I had rented it out as a pseudo guest room and she offered a very large sum of bits for the room (even though she claimed that they were something called “Flurbo’s”). So I let her move in…
It turned out to be the worst mistake of my life.
“Oh shit, Tavi! It’s almost onto us!”
Behind us, of course, was our newest acquaintance: the manticore… For the sake of the narrative, he’ll be hereby dubbed “Jim”.
Jim looked positively murderous as he chased after us. His eyes were bloodshot and his mouth had saliva spilling out of it… Is it just my imagination or was his spit hissing when it touched the ground? That can’t be good. It doesn’t help that Vinyl was throwing her alcohol at it since a piece of the glass had somehow managed to lodge itself into manticore's paw.
To quote Vinyl, “I bet that stings like a mother, you overgrown *uurp* shit stain.”
I should have tripped her when this whole thing started… She’d be fine, I think. No mare who drinks as much as Vinyl Scratch does would let something as simple as being mauled by a manticore take her down, right?
Calm down, Octavia, you're contemplating mare slaughter and murder…
“I wonder- *sluuurp* I wonder if I can gouge his eyes out with this bottle, Tavi… I’m – I’m – I *uuurrrp* *cough*. Oh shit, that’s the good stuff but yeah, Tavi...Tavi, I’m gonna do it.”
What in the name of all that’s holy is she talking about?
“I’ll eat your babies!!!”
I slid to a stop and turned to see what was going on, just in time to see Vinyl leaping through the air with a glass bottle in hoof (I have no clue where she even got that second bottle since she didn’t have it with us when we left the Summer Sun Celebration) poised to strike. Jim, who had stopped to look at the crazed alcoholic with what I assume was pure hatred and loathing… Oh wait, that’s me… The manticore just looks confused.
‘Well, Octavia, look on the bright side,’ I thought as Jim swatted the fantastic flying mare out of the sky after shaking off his temporary confusion. ‘At least you didn’t have to trip her, she did it herself…’
With a loud smack, Vinyl crashed into a tree. She landed with an undignified thud and an “oof”, but instead of dying like I had hoped (I would settle on knocked unconscious too. Celestia, I am not picky on my miracles) she just stood up and took another swig from the bottle that she had just tried to bludgeon Jim with.
“Is that the best you’ve got? *Uuurp* I can… I can… hit better than you any day of the week you- you- you oversized snuggle rump!” Wow, her curses and swears were actually worse now, thanks to that hit… Small miracles, I guess.
She looked over at me. “Tavi...Tavi, I’m gonna run for- for- for that castle, Tavi.” She lifts her bottle pointing the butt of it towards a ruined structure off in the distance. “I’m going to run and try to get to the moon before= before= *uurp* before moony booty does, Tavi…” The, alcohol was pouring all over her poor coat…... That explains why her chest was permanently stained yellow… “I need… I need you... uggg, I need you to distract the throw rug.”
“Vinyl, I am not going to distract Jim! You’ve obviously made him angry and he’s focusing more on you more than me, so why can’t you do it!?” I was backing up really, really slowly at this point. What I said was true, Jim was looking at Vinyl more than he was looking at me but I didn’t want to press my luck… You know, guilty by association and all that.
Vinyl just took another swig from her bottle (how is it not empty yet?) and smiled at me “Tavi...Tavi, I-I-I trust you, Ta*uurp*vi. I do. But if we don’t get to the moon and fix my Prismatic Accelerator Cannon then- then- then Snooty Moony will keep the Sun away Tavi...You know what that means?”
I didn’t even bother shaking my head, she was going to answer her own question anyway but right now, I was focused on distancing myself from the manticore. Jim seemed to have a very relaxed expression on his face, all things considered… Maybe he’s calming down?
“No- no- no more sun means no more growing stuff, Tavi!” Vinyl basically screamed, staggering a little as she hefted the bottle over her head. “That means no- no more booze!” With that, she threw the bottle at Jim. It managed to peg him in the head, leaving a big bump where it had impacted.
Jim fell down hard, hitting the ground. It soon became obvious that he had been knocked unconscious and I cringed. ‘No Jim get up...you're my only hope,’ I mentally prayed for the manticore to wake up and attack Vinyl again, but alas it was not to be… Just like my first chair…
Looking over at Vinyl again, I noticed that her sun glasses (why is she even wearing those right now? It’s been Night Time for almost 3 hours!) had dipped down to her snout and her eyes were now clearly visible and they were a very stunning blood red… Oh wait, no, that’s the alcohol poisoning.
She seemed surprised that she had managed to knock Jim out, but she quickly corrected herself and pulled her glasses back over her eyes with a grin. “Alright! That’s what I’m *uurp* talkin’ about, Tavi. Let’s go!” and with that, we continued our trek stepping over the very old wooden bridge. Once across, Vinyl kicked the posts out of the ground, knocking the bridge down into the ravine below.
“Vinyl! Why did you do that?” I couldn’t help but ask looking at her with what I assume was one eyebrow raised.
“Well Tavi, I don’t want those multi- multi colored friendship fuckers to come steal my thunder!” Tavi said with a grin, taking another swig out of her- OKAY, WHERE DID SHE EVEN GET THAT?!
I could feel my eye twitching and I just shook my head, continuing our walk. We made it to the castle without any problems. Coming into what I could only assume was an atrium of some kind, Vinyl walked over to the large stone structure that stood in the center of the room.
“Now, Tavi, stay – stay close to me. Tavi… This is what’s gonna get us to the moon,” she lifted her bottle to the statue. “But I gotta- I gotta put in the pass*urrrp*word first, Tavi… It’s very complicated and if I mess up.., I’m pretty- pretty sure we’ll lose all our leg bones, Tavi. We’ll- we’ll just turn into jelly, Tavi!” She proceeded to take another long swig from her alcohol (I think that’s her tenth one…) “Jelly legs!” and with that she chucked the bottle at the center statue.
Now I’m an earth pony. Being an earth pony means two very important things; one I don’t have magic, and two I don’t do well with being OFF of the earth! Flying counts and so does teleporting (Vinyl tried teleporting us away from the manticore when it started charging, it was the worst experience of my life). What Vinyl’s stupid statue just did to us was basically both. It launched us straight towards the moon, a trail of rainbows behind us and Vinyl laughing like a mad mare the entire time.
According to what Vinyl was saying to me earlier this morning while she was still sober (something that tends to not happen from what I’ve heard around town), it takes three days to get to the moon from the earth (I take that with a grain of salt, I have no idea how she tested it out or even came up with the number) but we crash landed onto the pale surface of the moon in a little less than twenty seconds. I landed on my posterior while Vinyl landed head first, tunneling into the surface about six feet down… Maybe that finally killed her?
Once again, my hopes and dreams were crushed when she jumped out of the grave she made (with her face mind you) and started talking. To my surprise (and glee), I couldn’t hear anything she was saying! I opened my mouth to thank Celestia again for small miracles when I realized I couldn’t breath… And that’s when I remembered from my science classes as a filly. That space was a vacuum and vacuums mean no air. Of course, no air means a very, very dead Tavi.
My vision started to black out as the oxygen rushed out of my body. I could feel every part of my body ache from the lack of oxygen and the only consolation was that she would die with me. I closed my eyes to embrace Elysium and be thanked for sacrificing myself to remove the abomination that is Vinyl Scratch from our world.
I waited.
Instead of feeling the warm embrace of Faust upon my ascension into her realm, I felt a hoof jam something down my throat. Taking a deep breath on reflex, I clamped my hoofs over my mouth, in surprise… I could breath!
“You know, Tavi. You should really listen when people are talking.”
I looked over at Vinyl as my vision cleared, she was looking at me over her sunglasses. Her eyes were no longer bloodshot but she still had that glazed over look that would let people know she was half past smashed and on her way to being shitfaced. “Now come on we gotta – gotta fix the damn laser cannon” she grumbled turning around and walking off.
Rushing after her (how the hell can she walk in ZERO GRAVITY) I couldn’t help but ask “Vinyl what was that thing you put down my throat?”
Vinyl looked back at me and just shrugged “An air lozenge, should keep you breathing and hearing and all that for another thirty minutes while we fix the Prismatic Accelerator Cannon,” She turned her head back towards the bleak lunar surface “Let’s get this over with I’m starting to get sober…” with that she started to leap across the moon’s surface and I followed suit.
After a good two minutes of jumping around like we were in a bounce house (which I must grudgingly admit WAS fun) we finally found what we were looking for, a tipped over machine that looked like it had been here for ages, it was covered in moon dust and little ice particles, Vinyl picked up her pace even more, cursing loudly and yelling out “MY BABY” it wasn’t until she did so did we hear what sounded like a startled mouse and a loud crash.
Squinting to get a closer look it was then that I noticed the machine had moved, and something was hiding behind it, unfortunately I wasn’t the only one who noticed…
“Alright You motherfucker get out here!” Vinyl shouted pulling out a weird machine from..somewhere “I’ll shoot you I swear on whatever fucked up fake god you believe in I will!”
Two gold covered hoofs shot up over the machine “Don’t shoot Vinyl It’s me!” I landed with a thud and I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped to the floor (I can still taste the moon rocks) I recognized that voice.
Coming up from behind the machine, covered in dust and looking a little hagard was Princess Celestia, the crown princess of Equestria and one of the most if not the most respected pony in the world and she looked terrified. Looking over at my basement mate I could see why, Vinyl looked positively murderous (It doesn’t help that she probably had a massive hangover)
“Celestia why are you up here instead of doing stopping Moony Booty from getting rid of my booze!” Vinyl shouted SHOUTED at the literal physical embodiment of the sun, who looked away in what I assume now was shame.
“Well Vinyl, I didn’t know where you were So I thought that I could come up here to fix the canon and fix Lulu by myself without your help?” her elegant voice had started out strong but slowly started to get more and more unsure as Vinyl took off her glasses and glared down at the tallest pony in Equestria, no literally Celestia had started to lower herself to the ground as Vinyl got closer to her it was a very surreal experience.
Using her magic Vinyl lifted the machine (why didn’t the princess think of that?) then used said magic to clear the dust and debri from it, lining the machine up again she pulled a lever and the machine started to make a strange humming noise, a mirror popped out of the side of the machine and aimed towards the sun, while the pointy end (I don’t know what it’s called so don’t judge) Pointed back towards the earth. While this was going on Vinyl started her rant…
“What have I told you about touching my stuff Celestia, I leave you alone for once in your life and you go and fuck my my shit up!” she took a swig out of her bottle...I won’t even ask “You had one, one job Sun butt and that was keep Moony Booty on the moon until I could come back and fix this stupid thing, but noooooo you wanted to play-play-play the hero!” After she yelled that the canon fired, a rainbow of color heading straight towards the earth.
It was then that I realized what Vinyl was doing, she was going to destroy ponyville with that laser to stop Nightmare Moon, but with the shock of seeing the ruler of equestria being literally scolded by Vinyl I couldn't do anything to stop it.
As the rainbow laser of doom cruised towards my home world I could hear the crown Princess, the physical goddess of the sun being berated and yelled at by my basement mate who's use of curse words was getting more and more obscene, and with that I can't help but think two things, why hasn't the princess incinerated Vinyl yet? And what did I do today to deserve all of this....
