> Vinyl and Octavia Break The Timestream
>  by DoctorSpectrum
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One: Clock Blockers
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The day was bright and sunny. A slight breeze was blowing through the air, although it was barely noticed by the residents of the land, which consisted of a large, grassy plain. Many, many years from now, this area would eventually rise into a mountain, which in turn would spawn a city where the rulers of the land would reside, but for now, it was just a large plain with some very nice weather. All in all, it was a beautiful day.

At least, it would have been a beautiful day, if a portion of the local scenery hadn’t suddenly been ripped in half to create a hole in space-time. Hovering a few metres above the ground, the air somehow twisted itself at a violent angle, distorting the scenery. A blue spiral, spinning rapidly, emerged from the air, and grew to a radius of a few metres. From it, two quadrupedal figures were spat out onto the grass.

“Oww!” said one of the figures as it landed. “That hurt a lot more than I expect- hey! Where are we?” Behind the figures, the spiral shrunk down in size, and the air returned to normal. “This isn’t Canterlot!”

“I guess that that spell must have – argh!” The second figure, which was a white unicorn with a blue mane, briefly got up from the ground before wincing in pain and buckling down to her knees. “…Oww, getting up then really hurt my head. Anyway, I was gonna say, that spell must have been a teleportation one.”

“That stands to reason, Vinyl,” agreed the first pony, who was of course Octavia, as she helped Vinyl up. “Now, the only question is, where have we ended up?” She briefly looked around at her immediate surroundings.

“Someplace boring with lots of grass and not a lot happening,” said Vinyl, also looking around. “Anywhere you know?”

“Ponyville, maybe?” suggested Octavia, after considering it for a minute.

“Nah, Ponyville doesn’t have dinosaurs,” said Vinyl, pointing a hoof.

“Ponyville doesn’t – what?!” exclaimed Octavia, following Vinyl’s hoof. Sure enough, less than two hundred metres away were large quadrupedal dinosaurs with long necks – possibly apatosauri, although it was hard to tell. They were peacefully eating grass, apparently not having noticed the two ponies who had teleported into the middle of the field.

“What in Equestria are they doing there?!” Octavia exclaimed, still recovering from the shock. “They- those are dinosaurs!”

“Really?” asked Vinyl sarcastically. “You’re sure they’re not ponies in elaborate costumes?”

“…They could be,” Octavia said, thinking it over. “Dinosaurs died out something like, what, seventy-million years ago? I think the possibility of those creatures being elaborate costumes is more likely than us somehow having time travelled. After all, time travel is scientifically impossible.”
 
“Err… is it?” asked Vinyl. “How else could we have gotten here? Think about what we were doing just a few minutes ago…”

===============================

 
“Pew! Pew, pew, pew!” said Vinyl as she shot each laser from her crossbow. “Take that, mysterious CHIELD Agent!”
 
“Vinyl! Would you take this seriously?” asked Octavia, who was currently grappling with another CHIELD Agent. He was holding her down and trying to bring a knife to her throat as she in turn attempted to throw him off her.
 
“Oh yeah, sorry Octavia!” said Vinyl as she turned around. “You know how often I get caught up in this. Pew!” A laser fired from the crossbow she was levitating and hit the CHIELD Agent in the head. He frowned, looking up at Vinyl.
 
“Was that supposed to do something?” he asked. A moment later, Octavia had gotten enough leverage thanks to his being distracted to throw him off her and into a bookshelf, knocking him out.
 
“Man, I love it when they fall for the old laser trick!” Vinyl exclaimed, helping Octavia up. “Best one in the book!”
 
“It’s also the only one in the book,” said Octavia, checking her body for injuries and readjusting the crossbow strapped to one of her legs. “Our lasers suck, remember?”
 
“Yeah, but it’s still super cool!” said Vinyl enthusiastically. “I’m all like, ‘Oh hey, don’t mind me, I’m just shooting you with this laser which won’t hurt at all,’ and then they’re all like, ‘Nah, it’s cool, but why?’ and then you totally take them out with those… those very strong legs of yours…” Vinyl’s voice drifted off as she spoke, her eyes staring at Octavia’s thighs intensely.
 
Octavia giggled. “Vinyl, love, you know I love the attention and all, but we’re in the middle of a mission for COBRA, our employees. Serpent Superior asked us – and the rest of the COBRA Troopers – to break into this library, and steal a particular scroll for him, and as long as there are CHIELD Agents here, that mission is at risk of failure.”

“Who are you, Exposition?” asked Vinyl, sticking her tongue out at Octavia. “I know all that! I’m just saying… we could take a quick break to have a roll around in the hay, y’know what I mean?” She wriggled her eyebrows at Octavia a few times.
“…Were you about to say something else?” asked Octavia, confused. “You just went really quiet.”

“Oh yeah, I was totally making this seductive face at you below this Trooper mask,” said Vinyl, feeling slightly embarrassed. “Sometimes I forget I’m wearing it. Anyway, about my offer…?”
 
“We tried that on that mission to the Neighgyptian tomb, remember?” said Octavia. “It was really uncomfortable with our costumes and we just gave up before anything really happened.”

“Oh yeah! Well, how about after the mission then?” offered Vinyl.

“Why not?” said Octavia, chuckling slightly. “But for now, let’s focus on getting that scroll.” 

Silently, the two mares switched their demeanours to more professional ones, checking their crossbows and gear. Cautiously moving around a bookshelf and into a larger area, with couches and small tables set up, Octavia led the duo whilst Vinyl covered their rear, looking behind and above them for threats.

“Did Serpent Superior say where the scroll was situated?” whispered Vinyl. The chaos that had first erupted when COBRA had arrived at the library had mostly subsided, but there was no telling where any conscious CHIELD Agents could be, nor how many of their COBRA allies were still in fighting condition.

“He said that we’d have to just check room by room,” whispered Octavia back. “And nice alliteration, by the way.”

“Thanks.”

Quietly, the two mares moved around the mostly empty library, with its towering bookshelves and soft carpet. There were unconscious bodies of CHIELD Agents and COBRA Troopers here and there, but Vinyl and Octavia had no time to attend to their allies – time was of the essence on this mission, and they had been instructed, just like the rest of the Troopers, to prioritise the mission above all else.

“Vinyl! I think that might be the scroll we’re after,” breathed Octavia after a minute, pressed to the side of a door. She was pointing into a room where a group of unconscious COBRA Agents were lying, one of them holding a scroll. Although it appeared innocuous, looking at it carefully revealed that it had a subtle blue glow to it.

“So why aren’t we just running in and grabbing it?” asked Vinyl, savvy enough to question Octavia’s logic rather than following her instincts and stepping into the room.

“There are unconscious COBRA Troopers…but no unconscious CHIELD Agents, at least that I can see,” replied Octavia. “So what knocked out the COBRA Troopers? And why is the scroll just sitting there? I can only think of one reason –”

“Aliens!” blurted out Vinyl.

“…I was going to say a sniper, since this room has a second storey balcony,” Octavia said bluntly.

“Oh yeah…but aliens could be behind it too, right?” asked Vinyl.

Octavia smiled below her mask. “If it’s not a sniper, I’m sure that’s it, Vinyl. Mind levitating the scroll out of the room?”

Vinyl complied, surrounding the scroll with her magical blue aura and taking it out of the room. “Do you think it’s the right one?” she asked, studying it, but not opening it up. Some scrolls contained spells designed to activate once they were opened, and the COBRA Troopers hadn’t been instructed on what this scroll was for.

“It certainly matches the description,” said Octavia after inspecting it for a moment. “I suppose now we just need to get out of here without being detected, and –”

“Stop right there, criminal scum!” bellowed a voice from behind the two ponies. Slowly, hesitantly, they turned around to find themselves facing several CHIELD Agents, all with crossbows aimed at them.

“You do realise we’re not criminals, right?” Vinyl said, knowing that it would probably do no good.

“Yeah, we just work for a pest extermination company,” added Octavia. “Although we were framed for – wait, don’t listen to me.”

“Not criminals – yeah, I’ll believe that when my name’s no longer Hunter,” said the apparent leader of the CHIELD Agents, spitting in disgust. (The agent to his left gave him an annoyed look). “Do you idiots know what that scroll contains? Why your boss sent you to get it?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just recipes or something like that,” said Vinyl, completely seriously. “That’s the sort of mission he’d send us on.”

“He does enjoy serving everyone afternoon tea,” Octavia confirmed, nodding as she spoke.

“You’re really that naïve?” asked Hunter, walking up closer to the ponies until he was right in their faces. His voice was gravelly; low and rough. The CHIELD Agents behind him still had their crossbows aimed at Vinyl and Octavia, ensuring his protection. “That scroll, which you’ve broken in here to steal –”

“We didn’t break in! We walked through the front entrance!” exclaimed Octavia.

“Yeah! And the only reason we fought you guys is because you attacked us first!” Vinyl said.

“-the scroll, it has an amazingly powerful spell encoded on it,” continued the CHIELD Agent. “There’s no way that we Agents of CHIELD will allow COBRA to take it, so unfortunately…I’m afraid that this is the end of the road for you two.” The crossbows of the other CHIELD Agents were all cocked.

“Octavia, we’re screwed…unless…Unexpected Vinyl Maneuver!” exclaimed Vinyl suddenly. Knowing that they were going to be shot regardless, she leapt over and grabbed Octavia as she simultaneously unravelled the scroll. A blinding blue light shone out from the ink on it.

“Hold your fire!” growled Hunter. “The energy of the scroll is about to be unleashed – there’s no knowing what could happen if it’s disturbed!”

“Let’s see how I go at casting this thing…not sure about that bit, or that one…Tiid Klo Ul? No idea what that means…” As Vinyl rushed to read the scroll, her horn lit up with magic as she prepared to cast the spell as best she could.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” asked Octavia, wincing from the intensity of the light.

“Nope, but since when has that ever stopped me?” asked Vinyl, grinning. “Let’s spin this!” Her horn was by now glowing with an intensity to match that of the scroll, and as she spoke, the air around her and Octavia distorted, giving them a literally twisted appearance to the CHIELD Agents. A moment later, a blue spiral appeared around the duo – and then they were gone.


===============================


 

“I can sort of see where you’re coming from, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve time travelled,” said Octavia, staring off absentmindedly at the dinosaurs, still obliviously eating grass. “Maybe that spell could have… could have…”

Vinyl put a hoof on Octavia’s shoulder. “Sorry, Octavia, but unless we get more evidence, I think you’ve got to conclude that we’ve time travelled. Where else could we be but the distant past of Equestria?”

Octavia didn’t reply, instead staring blankly as she thought intensely. Could that really have happened? We’ve travelled several million years to before our friends – to before we existed! “What does this mean?” Octavia asked, her mind still somewhat reeling. “Are – are we trapped here? Trapped without any ponies, any allies at all? Doomed to spend the rest of our lives-”
“Whoah there, no need to be so dramatic!” interrupted Vinyl. “I got us here with a spell, and I can get us back home with the same one! I really doubt that the scroll was designed with a spell to transport ponies to this specific time period – that’s way too specific.”

“So you think that it’s just a generic time travel spell?” asked Octavia.

“Yeah,” said Vinyl, nodding. “It was pretty complex from what I could understand of it – I guess more skilled ponies than me could subtly manipulate the web of magic to transport them to a specific time. Since I didn’t know crap about it, I unintentionally randomly threw us here. At least, that’s my theory.”

“And you think that you can manipulate the spell well enough to get us back to our home time?” Octavia asked. She was starting to feel calmer now that the situation didn’t seem as dire as it was a few minutes ago.

“Well, it won’t hurt to try!” said Vinyl enthusiastically. “I’ll just grab the scroll, and…hey, where did the scroll go?” she asked, looking around. “I swear I had it in my telekinetic grip when I cast the spell…”

Octavia then noticed something that she should have immediately upon them going through the time travel portal. “Our COBRA uniforms and gear are gone,” she commented as she scanned the ground for the scroll, fruitless as she suspected it would be.

“Huh? How didn’t I notice that?” asked Vinyl, frowning by now as she looked for the elusive scroll. “…Everything’s gone,” she realised half a moment later. “Our gear, our weapons, the scroll…it’s just us that travelled to this time period.”

“Maybe it’s because you were only focusing on us when you cast the spell?” Octavia suggested. “Or…I don’t know, only organic matter can time travel?” A tone of dread was starting to creep back into her voice as the possibility of them being stuck here returned.

Vinyl shook her head. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I think I can remember enough of the spell that I can try casting it from memory.”

“Is that the safest thing?” Octavia asked. “Best case scenario, won’t we just end up in some other random time period since you don’t know how to adjust the length of time being travelled?”

“You’d rather stay here?” Vinyl asked, gesturing around them. “At least if we go to another time, there might be ponies there…or,” she added, suddenly getting excited, “ponies might have evolved! Evolved, into two distinct subtypes – one, a hideous race of beasts living underground during the day, and the other, a beautiful but weak race of –”

“There’s already three different races of ponies,” pointed out Octavia, interrupting Vinyl Scratch. “Four, if you count alicorns.”

“…My idea is still cool,” said Vinyl, sounding slightly annoyed. “Anyway, I’ll give this spell a try, and let’s see whether we can get a bit closer to home.”

“Define ‘closer to home’,” said Octavia as Vinyl’s horn began glowing blue. “What would you consider an acceptable length of time separation?”

Although it was subtle, Octavia could see as Vinyl spoke that Vinyl’s teeth were gritted, and she was having some difficulty speaking as the spell grew in power. “Well, let’s just say that – that I wouldn’t say no to buying some rare, I dunno, comic books or something, in the past, so that we could sell them in the future for a tonne of bits.” The glow faded slightly as Vinyl thought it over. “That is… the past relative to our time…but the future relative to our time is still the future here? This is confusing.”

“Don’t forget that we might not be able to transport items between different time periods,” said Octavia, watching with concern as the spell’s power continued to increase.

“Bah!” grunted Vinyl, sweat visibly appearing on her brow now. “There you – go with – your logic and stuff! How about – I just take us to a time where- my dad – argh!”

Last time Vinyl had cast the time travel spell, her horn had lit up brightly moments before a distortion sucked the two ponies into another time period. This time, her horn lit up brightly moments before the glow disappeared and Vinyl fell to the ground, screaming in pain as her hooves grasped as best they could at her forehead.

“Vinyl!” exclaimed Octavia, leaning down to her friend and examining her as best she could. “Are you okay? What happened?”

It took Vinyl a moment to answer. She was breathing heavily, and looked much more exhausted than she had a minute ago. “I- I guess that the first time I cast the spell, it exhausted most of my magical e-energy,” she said, her voice shaky. “My head… it just hurt so badly. I might be able to cast the spell again, but not for a few hours, maybe…it’s pretty taxing.”

“Crap, that’s not so convenient…” said Octavia, running a hoof through her marefriend’s mane as a small way to help stabilise her. Looking around, Octavia spotted a small outcrop of rock atop a hill, several hundred metres behind them. “Can you get up and walk, Vinyl? If we’re going to be killing time, we might as well do it in a bit of shelter and protection. I don’t know what the odds of there being carnivorous dinosaurs around here are.”

“Yeah, I should be right,” said Vinyl, slowly climbing to her hooves, shaking all the while. “Let’s head up there.”

===============================


 

“…no, Vinyl. We can’t time travel to the past, meet our past selves and then get them to hook up,” said Octavia. It was several hours later, and the two ponies were sitting by the outcrop which Octavia had spotted. About an hour ago, clouds had begun to appear in the sky, and it had been lightly raining ever since. Although both ponies had been excited for a short while that there might have been pegasi in the sky, it soon turned out to be a natural phenomenon, something which weirded the two of them out.
 
“What makes you so sure?” asked Vinyl. The two ponies were in good spirits after a small meal of grass, and had just been sitting around talking since they had gotten to the cave.
 
“Have you ever, at any point in your past, been approached by your future self, who has tried to convince you to hook up with a grey pony who happens to be me?” asked Octavia. “Because if you have, then yes, maybe we can try it, but if not, then logic shows that we can’t do that.”

“Well, not yet, yeah,” agreed Vinyl. “But once we travel to our pasts, then we’ll be there, so we can do it then! You know what I mean?”

“…But our pasts have already happened, Vinyl,” said Octavia, starting to feel as though she was going insane. This was at least the third time that she was explaining it to Vinyl. “So since it never happened, we will never do it. Does that not make sense to you?”

Vinyl frowned. “But I thought that the past was in the future? Since it’s not going to happen for several million years?”

There was a loud smacking noise as Octavia facehoofed. “Look just…don’t worry about it,” she groaned. “Anyway, you said you can’t control the time travel spell for now, so it’s not like we could go to our pasts even if we wanted to.”

“Hey…I can’t control the time travel spell for now…but maybe in the future I can!” said Vinyl, suddenly excited. “If I ever can, I could come back to now, and save us!”

“…Sorry, explain that again?” Octavia asked.

“So, like, right now, I can’t control the time travel spell, right?” Vinyl said. “But one day, maybe I’ll be able to, and when I can, I can time travel to wherever – no, whenever – I want!”

“Celestia and Luna help us the day that happens,” muttered Octavia under her breath.
 
“So anyway,” continued Vinyl, not having heard Octavia, “if I get control over time travel, then I could just come back to here, rescue us, then take us back to the present! Wait, I mean future.”

“I get it!” said Octavia. “So we might be rescued by your future self!”

“Exactly!” said Vinyl. There was silence in the cave as both ponies waited for the distortion in space-time which marked the time travel portal opening.

“…Vinyl, don’t take this the wrong way, but your future self sucks,” said Octavia glumly after realising that Vinyl’s idea wasn’t going to happen.

“Great, guess I never master using the time travel spell then,” said Vinyl. As she spoke, a new thought occurred to her. “Do you think that means…maybe we never get home? We just…bounce around the timestream, hoping that one day we travel to our home time…but never getting there?”

Octavia bit her lip. “Let’s…not consider that possibility,” she said. “Let’s- maybe we should get out of here – this time period, that is. If you’re feeling up to it.”

In spite of feeling nervous, Vinyl grinned. “Yeah, let’s. But first –” Levitating a small rock from the floor, Vinyl scratched a quick drawing into the wall. “- declare this the cave of Vinyl Scratch, the most awesome pony in prehistoric Equestria! After her amazing marefriend Octavia, of course.” Sketched onto the wall was a crude picture of Vinyl’s head, with the caption ‘Awesome’.

Octavia shook her head. “I’m not even going to question why,” she said, smiling.

“Hay, in a way, we’re the first ponies in Equestria,” said Vinyl. “Might as well place a monument to that somewhere, since nopony will ever believe us.”

“Heh. You’re a funny pony, Vinyl Scratch,” said Octavia, giving Vinyl a small peck on the cheek.

“You ready to give this time travel thing another go?” asked Vinyl.

“If you’re feeling up to it, sure.”

Vinyl was, and so once more, her horn glowed as she gathered power. Octavia felt the air distort and grow thicker as the spell continued to charge, Vinyl’s horn once more glowing brightly. “You’re feeling alright?” asked Octavia, putting a hoof on Vinyl’s cheek. Vinyl nodded, her teeth gritted.

Octavia held herself close to Vinyl, supporting her lover as she continued to pump magical energy into the spell. There was definitely a different feel in the air now, as Vinyl’s horn continued to light up.

Then, with only a single word of warning – “Ready,” – the spell was cast. Octavia and Vinyl briefly got a shot of a blue spiral encompassing them before they disappeared for good. Or rather, the world disappeared around them. To the two mares, it was as though someone had thrown them through a door – the scenery around them changed instantaneously. One moment, they were within a rocky outcrop, the next they were in what appeared to be a large city, full of bright lights and lots of noise. But there was no time to take note of their surroundings – Vinyl and Octavia had their focus on something more important.

“Hello, Vinyl,” said a voice.

“Hello, Octavia,” said another.

“You!” gasped Vinyl and Octavia, at the exact same time.
> Chapter Two: Meanwhile, in the Future
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You’re…you’re…” stuttered Octavia, looking at the two ponies facing her and Vinyl.

“Hi, Octavia!” said the first pony. She was an Earth pony slightly taller than Octavia, with a coat the same shade as Octavia’s. Her mane was similar to Octavia’s, although it had a few more grey hairs in it. “I’m your future self!”

The other pony, meanwhile, had a mane slightly shorter than Vinyl’s, which made up for it by being even more spiky and messy than Vinyl’s could ever hope to be in its current state. She was a white unicorn, and wore an eyepatch over one eye. The other noticeable thing about her was her leg – specifically, her right back leg, which appeared to be completely mechanical. “And I’m Future Vinyl Scratch! But to differentiate me from past Vinyl, call me Violent Slash instead – that’s way cooler!”

Future Octavia facehoofed. “Please don’t encourage her. I don’t know where she gets these ideas, but I doubt they’re good for her.”

“Hey, I got this idea from my future self when we were time travelling twenty-five years ago, remember, babe?” Future Vinyl Scratch said, grinning. “How could you not expect me to say this on today of all days?”

“I was hoping with all my might that we could perhaps change the past by, you know, not saying the dumb things we heard our future selves say at the time?” Future Octavia said, smirking in spite of her words.

“Aww, but where would the fun be in that?” asked Future Vinyl Scratch. Looking to Vinyl and Octavia, who were both standing there stunned, she added, “Guys, I know you’ve got a lot of questions, so follow us and we’ll explain them. Specifically, for your questions, Vinyl: Yes, yes, no, yes, forty-two, and yes, when we’re back at our house, but only if you two are quiet whilst in the act.”

“You’re…our future selves,” Octavia finally managed to splutter out.

“Yep! And welcome to Future Canterlot! At least, from your perspective. We just call it Present Canterlot,” said Future Vinyl Scratch.

“This is Canterlot?” Vinyl asked, looking around. The buildings were all much larger than in her and Octavia’s time, being comparable to the skyscrapers of Manehattan here. It was night time, yet there were enough bright lights around from the buildings that it might as well be late afternoon. The most notable thing, however, was the transportation system of the future – rather than walking on the street, or even taking carts to get to where they needed to be, ponies high in the sky above the street appeared to be flying on hoverboards of some kind. “Awesome!”

“Follow us; we’ll take you back to our place and we can have drinks,” said Future Vinyl Scratch. 
“Our hoverboards are parked over here.”

“Hoverboards?” Vinyl whined. “Ah man, I was hoping that you guys would have jetpacks! Jetpacks are totally cool!”

“You’ve bought – I think it was either three or four? – in the past,” Future Octavia said as the ponies headed down a side alley and into a parking lot. “Each time, the jets burned away more of your mane and tail, so I ended up throwing each of them out until you gave up on buying them.”

“Yes…gave up…” said Future Vinyl, looking around shiftily.

“Why do we need to use hoverboards, or jetpacks, or whatever?” Octavia asked. “Do ponies in the future just not walk anywhere anymore?”

“It’s the principle of the thing,” said Vinyl. “Travelling somewhere by hoverboard is waaay cooler than walking there! Plus, we’re in the future. Do you want to say that you’ve been to the future but you didn’t fly on a hoverboard while you were there?”

By now, the group had arrived at two parked hoverboards, which were attached to a railing by a chain.  Each looked large enough to support two, perhaps three, ponies. “I felt similarly confused at your age, Octavia, but since hoverboards have become commonplace, I decided that it would be worth buying and using one, if only to humour Vinyl,” said Future Octavia.

“You were only humouring me?” Future Vinyl gasped. “You mean… you did something you didn’t really want to do for my sake?...I love you so much, Octavia.”

“I love you too, Vinyl,” said Future Octavia, nuzzling Future Vinyl back. Deciding to at least try to give the two some form of privacy, Octavia looked away, only to catch Vinyl grinning and looking at her.

“What?” asked Octavia.

“Isn’t it great?”

“Isn’t what great?”

“Just…us. Them. Everything,” said Vinyl still grinning. “It’s – what, future me said twenty-five years? – later, and we’re still going strong? That’s super cool to know. Isn’t that super cool?”

“I –” Octavia paused. She hadn’t thought of that. Watching Future Vinyl and Future Octavia unlock their hoverboards with some sort of keycards, she found herself smiling as she picked up on a few small things – the small peck of a cheek Future Vinyl gave to Future Octavia, the way their tails brushed against each other, or even just how much the two of them were smiling. 
“Yeah…it is pretty nice,” Octavia said. “I…I suppose that I’ve never thought of us breaking up, even though I knew that the possibility existed. But now, knowing that in the future we’re apparently still going out –”

“Love you, Octavia,” Vinyl said, interrupting Octavia and leaning forwards for a kiss.

“Love you too, Vinyl,” said Octavia, reciprocating the kiss. “Now and forever.”

“Hey! Get a room, you two!” shouted Future Vinyl, grinning too broadly to be mistaken for serious.

“Isn’t that why we’re going to your guys’ house?” asked Vinyl back. “To get a room?”

“Ooh, good answer. I like this one, Octavia,” said Future Vinyl to Future Octavia.

Future Octavia rolled her eyes, although she was smiling at the same time. “She’s your past self, Vinyl. Of course you like her.”

“Yeah, but she might be a different past version of me, y’know?” said Future Vinyl. “Like, what if the timeline changes, so she’s me…but she’s not me?!”

“…That made no sense,” pointed out Octavia.

“That made perfect sense!” protested Future Vinyl. “How do we know you two aren’t from a timeline where everypony is secretly a zombie?!”

“How do we know that in the future everypony isn’t a zombie?!” Vinyl countered, entering the conversation. “Prove that you’re not a zombie!”

“Everypony, calm down! Nopony here is a zombie!” shouted Future Octavia, stepping in-between Future Vinyl and Vinyl. They both looked at her, waiting to see what she would say next. “An alternate timeline isn’t a thing, anyway. You’re thinking of an alternate universe, darling.”

“Not true,” said Future Vinyl Scratch. “If the timeline Past Vinyl and Past Octavia are from had different stuff happen to them, it would create an alternate universe, and therefore it would be an alternate timeline.”

“At what point does an alternate timeline become an alternate universe, though?” Octavia asked. 
“If we decided to, say, eat something different for dinner tonight compared to what you two had when you were time travelling, everything would probably be the same, wouldn’t it? So we’d be from an alternate timeline, but not an alternate universe.”

“But it might change things, and thus change your future,” Future Vinyl Scratch said. “So you can’t prove that you wouldn’t be from an alternate universe.”

“Can I just say that I’m glad nopony is referring to it as another dimension?” Vinyl said. “I hate so much when ponies are talking about alternate universes and timelines and whatever, and somepony says ‘it’s another dimension’. Dimensions do not work that way. We live in a three-dimensional world. We draw two and one-dimensional pictures. A lot of ponies just don’t get that.”

Silence fell amongst the group as everypony contemplated this.

“…Time travel is really weird and confusing,” said Octavia, breaking the silence. Everypony nodded in agreement.

“For what it’s worth, Octavia, we had the same discussion twenty-five years ago with our future selves, so I think it’s safe to say that we can rule out you two as being from an alternate timeline where everypony is a zombie,” said Future Octavia, smiling.

“That being said, how cool would it be if there was a universe where zombies can disguise themselves as regular ponies?” asked Future Vinyl to the group. “It would be scary, but fun!”

“Would they be zombies then?” Vinyl asked. “It just sounds to me like they’d be ponies who like eating brains.”

“Urgh!” exclaimed Octavia, frowning at Vinyl. “I did not need that mental image, thank you Vinyl.”

“Nah, I’m not saying that they’d be alive or anything – they’d still be dead, just that they’d look alive and act alive,” explained Future Vinyl as the group finally climbed onto the hoverboards. For safety reasons, Vinyl and Octavia’s future selves were flying a hoverboard each. “So they’d be zombies in spirit, at least.”

“…Spirit zombies?!” gasped Vinyl as the hoverboards levitated into the air. “That’s- Octavia, when we end up getting to be this old, make sure that I stay this awesome forever!”

“Of course, Vinyl, provided that you don’t try to make us fight spirit zombies, or something insane like that,” said Octavia. “Goodness knows I hate zombies after fighting them in one too many roleplaying campaigns; I’d hate if we had to fight them in real life at some point in the future.”

Future Vinyl and Future Octavia glanced at each other. “Uhh…” said Future Octavia. “About that…”

“By the way,” began Vinyl, apparently not noticing what Future Vinyl and Future Octavia were up to, “I’ve been meaning to ask since we got here, and I figure now’s as good an opportunity as ever – Future Vinyl, what’s with the eyepatch and the cyborg leg? Does something terrible happen to me in the future?”

“Oh, this thing?” asked Vinyl, pointing to her eyepatch with a hoof. “I totally wore it to look cool in front of you guys! Everyone knows that future versions of ponies always wear eyepatches!” As she spoke, she lifted up the patch to show a perfectly normal eye underneath.

“I told her it was pointless, but she insisted,” said Future Octavia, shaking her head and smiling. The two ponies were guiding their hoverboards by subtly shifting their weight, allowing for them to talk and fly them at the same time.

“Wouldn’t that cause issues with depth perception?” Octavia asked, raising an eyebrow in concern.

“Yeah, but it’s worth it for the awesome look!” said Future Vinyl Scratch. “Oww!” she said, bumping her horn on a streetlight a moment later.

Future Octavia shook her head once more. “Twenty-five years you’ve known that would happen, and yet still you insisted on wearing the eyepatch.”

“I thought I’d have more time to duck under it – it looked further away than it was,” grumbled Vinyl, rubbing her horn with a hoof, directing the hoverboard all the time.

“Don’t worry, Octavia – when I fly the hoverboard in the future, I sure won’t crash into the streetlight,” said Vinyl across the gap between the two ponies. “I’ll even avoid it while wearing the eyepatch! It’ll look super cool!”

“That one bit of dialogue says so much about you, Vinyl,” said Octavia, smirking. As Vinyl opened her mouth to reply, she was interrupted by Future Octavia.

“We’re nearly at the apartment, guys,” said Future Octavia. “Get ready to see your future home!”

The two ponies flew their hoverboards to the top of an apartment building, and attached them to chains on the roof, similar to what they had done in the parking lot. “We live on the third floor from the top,” said Future Vinyl Scratch. “It might be a bit cramped with the four of us in there, but I’m sure we’ll manage.”

“To be honest, I’m a little surprised that we live in an apartment in the future,” commented Octavia as her future self unlocked a rooftop door with the same keycard she’d used back in the parking lot.

“Yeah, I was kinda hoping we’d move back into our old house, especially seeing as how we kinda move back to Canterlot,” said Vinyl. The ponies entered a stairwell and began walking down it.

“It’s a little sad, to be honest,” said Future Octavia. “We did move back there eventually, but due to overpopulation, a lot of housing lots were destroyed to make room for apartment buildings, so we had to move here.”

“But on the plus side, the skyscrapers can retract if an angel attacks the city!” exclaimed Future Vinyl Scratch.

“An angel?” mouthed Vinyl to Octavia. Octavia shrugged in response, not sure how to reply.
It wasn’t long before the ponies were in a carpeted hall filled with apartment doors. Using her keycard once more, Future Octavia opened the door of one – Apartment 12B – and the ponies entered it. It was a small apartment, consisting of an entryway, a kitchen, lounge room, bedroom, and a bathroom. There was also a small balcony outside.

“Well, this is certainly a nice apartment,” said Octavia as the tour finished. “It’s certainly less messy than Vinyl’s old apartment, that’s for sure,” she said, nudging Vinyl playfully.

“That wasn’t mess, that was arranged chaotically!” exclaimed Vinyl enthusiastically. “And it looked awesome!”

“Don’t get me wrong – I still miss that old box – but let me tell you, you would not believe how cool this apartment is!” said Future Vinyl. “Watch this!” Reaching out a hoof to a nearby coffee table, she pressed a button on a remote that was there. The four ponies were silent as they waited for its effects to reveal themselves.

 “Well, it was supposed to turn on the air conditioning, but I guess the power supply is dead,” said Future Vinyl. She threw the remote over her shoulder in dismissal, not noticing Future Octavia’s gasp of protest. “Whatever, let’s make some dinner!”
 

===============================

 
“So, how is everyone going at COBRA in the future?” asked Vinyl Scratch. After managing to convince both Octavia and Future Octavia that they wouldn’t be necessary for helping to cook dinner, she and Future Vinyl had managed to put together some salad wraps to eat. The four ponies were sitting around the lounge room right now, eating and talking.

“COBRA? Wow, that was a long time ago,” said Future Vinyl. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but nowadays, Octavia and I work –”

“Yes, you shouldn’t say what our jobs are,” interrupted Future Octavia, although not rudely. “We talked about this, remember?”

“Fine,” said Future Vinyl, rolling her eyes. “But trust me, Past Vinyl, they’re super cool jobs!”

“Talked about what?” asked Octavia, frowning in confusion. “Is there something we shouldn’t know?”

“Well –” Future Octavia swallowed her bite, then continued. “Well, to be honest…Vinyl and I had a discussion, and we think it’s better if we avoid talking about specific things which happen in your futures.”

“Yeah – it means that you get to experience all the fun of what we did for the first time!” exclaimed Future Vinyl.

“Yes…the ‘fun’,” muttered Future Octavia, making a quotation gesture with her hooves.
Octavia frowned. “Is that for the best?” she asked. “What if Vinyl and I end up in mortal peril, and information which you two know could save us if you tell us now?”

“You guys will let me buy a sport’s almanac while I’m in the future though, right?” asked Vinyl.

Ignoring Vinyl, Future Octavia said, “I realise that it’s not very reassuring, but, well…Vinyl and I are around now, and we’ve managed to survive everything that life’s thrown at us. If we told you some of the challenges that life throws at you, who knows whether preparing for them would just lead to worse problems along the way because things turned out differently?”

“Or hay, you might prepare for some stuff we tell you about, and then it doesn’t end up happening, because your future ends up different to ours,” said Future Vinyl as she finished off her meal. “And like I said, more fun when you’re on your adventures if you don’t know what happens!”

Octavia thought it over. Part of her still wished that her future self and Future Vinyl would tell her some things that would happen in her future, but could see where they were coming from with their logic. “I…guess that makes sense,” said Octavia reluctantly.

“I wish I knew whether we’d at least return to our original time.” Vinyl’s voice spoke out, surprising everyone. It was an unusually sombre thing for the unicorn to say, particularly after she had been quiet for so long.

“Oh yeah, I’ll flat out tell you that you guys will end up getting to…a safe time,” said Future Vinyl, grinning and putting her plate down onto the floor. “You’ll be fine as long as you do the same things we do, which I reckon you will. And trust me, there’s some awesome stuff coming up for you guys,” said Future Vinyl.

“I’m twenty-five years older than you, Vinyl, and…I’ve…seen things you wouldn’t believe.  COBRA ships fire off the shoulder of Canterlot. I watched fluorescent lights glitter in the dark near nightclubs.” She shook her head slightly. “And one day, all those…moments…will be lost in time, like –” Future Vinyl coughed slightly “- wubs…in…a really crappy nightclub.”

“You alright, Vinyl?” asked Future Octavia, raising an eyebrow in concern. Everypony in the apartment was watching Future Vinyl intensely, wondering what the hay she was going on about.

“Hmm? Oh, that cough? Just clearing my throat a little,” said Future Vinyl, smiling broadly. “Why?”

“No reason,” said Future Octavia, rolling her eyes and shaking her head.

“Err…I hate to interrupt at this moment, but, well…” Octavia glanced over at Vinyl, who cleared her own throat.

“We were…kinda thinking about trying the time travel spell again, now that we’ve had a bit to eat,” said Vinyl. “I’m feeling like giving it a try, and seeing as how this obviously isn’t our own time…no time like the present, you know? Or the future, I guess.”

“That’s not a bad idea, as far as our ideas go,” said Future Vinyl, grinning. “Buuut, on the other hoof…”

“How would you two like to have a tour of the city tomorrow?” asked Future Octavia. “It’s not as though there’s any danger in staying a little longer, and we thought you two might be interested in having a look around a new location – think of it as a very short holiday.”

Vinyl and Octavia looked at each other for each other’s opinion. “Yeah?” asked Vinyl.

“Yes, I see no harm in it,” said Octavia. A thought occurred to her as she spoke. “You two planned to offer this before we arrived here, hadn’t you?”

“What can I say?” asked Future Vinyl Scratch. “I love the idea of spending time with my two favourite ponies in the world – Octavia and Past Octavia.” A moment later, Vinyl had thrown a couch pillow that had somehow ended up on the floor at her future self in pretence anger.

“So, we all agree? It’s a date then?” asked Future Octavia. “Or, well, you know what I mean,” she said, blushing furiously. Everypony nodded in confirmation. “Good! Now, Past Octavia and Past Vinyl, Vinyl and I are happy to set up a mattress in here for ourselves for the night…”
 

===============================

 
“I think that I really like the future,” said Vinyl, looking up at the skyscrapers fondly as she walked down the street. It was the next day, and she was heading down the street from the apartment with Future Vinyl. “For some reason, I was thinking that in the future everything would be much more…I dunno, dirty?”

“Yeah, I know exactly what you’re talking about!” said Future Vinyl. “When I was your age, I always pictured ponies in the future being ruled by a ruthless dictator, getting rid of ponies once they were above the age of thirty.”

“And yet, everything here seems so bright and optimistic!” said Vinyl. “I like this!”

“Just wait ‘til you see where we’re going,” said Future Vinyl, lifting her eyepatch to wink at Vinyl. “I loved it when I was time travelling, so you hopefully should too.”

“Any idea what Octavia and Future Octavia have decided to do for their tour?” asked Vinyl. “Good idea, by the way, splitting into pairs since we have such different interests to Octavia.”

“No idea where they went; we’ll have to ask Octavia and Past Octavia later,” said Future Vinyl. “And yeah, it’s a good thing that we decided to split from them – Octavia hates whenever I come here.” It took Vinyl a moment to realise that her future self had stopped, apparently at their destination.

“A bar?” Vinyl asked, confused. “Future me… you realise that I have them in the time I’m from, right?”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t believe some of the cool stuff we’ve got here!” said Future Vinyl. “Come on, is there really anything you’d rather do than get drunk with the coolest pony you know?”

“You’re not the coolest pony I know,” said Vinyl, frowning. “I am!”

“Yeah, exactly! And I have an eyepatch, so I have to be cooler than you are!” said Future Vinyl, grinning. “So why not go for a few drinks?”

“Well, the time is ten o’clock in the morning,” said Vinyl, squinting at a distant clock tower, “so that means that we’ve missed out on ten hours’ worth of drinking!” She looked at her future counterpart and grinned. “All right, you’re on, future me! We’ll go drinking, but so help me, if it turns out that Octavia did something really cool that can only be done in the future, I’m going to be super disappointed.”

Future Vinyl guided Vinyl into the bar, which looked as though it was only just opening. “C’mon, we’ll be fine. I bet they’re not doing anything as exciting as this…”
 

===============================

 
“My goodness, this is exciting!” said Octavia. “I – I can’t believe how good this is!”

“Yes, it certainly is unique to what you would think of as the future,” said Future Octavia, smiling at Octavia.

“I can believe that,” said Octavia. “This tea is simply fabulous!” She took a sip of it, savouring every drop as it entered her mouth. The two ponies were sitting outdoors at a café, drinking tea and sharing a piece of cake. Since it was a weekday, it wasn’t too busy, and the ponies had some relative peace and quiet.

“I had thought that you might enjoy that,” said Future Octavia, taking a sip of her own tea. “In your future, trading with foreign countries has increased, so we’re able to get much more exotic drinks and such here compared to your time. That tea which I recommended for you is from the zebra lands, I believe.”

“Well it was a good recommendation, so thank you for it,” said Octavia. “And a good idea to come to a café today, as well. I can’t remember the last time I’ve simply had five minutes to sit down by myself…literally, in this case.”

“I had thought that you would appreciate it,” said Future Octavia, stirring some sugar into her tea. 

“If I’m not mistaken, your life has been quite hectic recently, since the detective business.” She frowned a moment later. “That is right, isn’t it? I didn’t just accidentally spoil some of your future?”

Octavia found herself smiling as she drank from her tea. “No, you’re right, both with regards to life being hectic and my recent history. It certainly has been all over the place.” Octavia found herself staring into her tea as she spoke. “I suppose that if it weren’t for this time travel incident, it wouldn’t be that bad – Vinyl and I have somewhat managed to stabilise our lives since we escaped from jail. It’s just a good thing that we’ve found an organisation as friendly and trustworthy as COBRA who accepted us.”

Future Octavia smirked at that, but didn’t say anything.

“I think that Vinyl often gets caught up in the heat of the moment and doesn’t really think about the reality of what’s happening – certainly she adjusts to it more than I do. I usually go along with what’s happening for her sake, but…when do I get a say? When do I get to say, ‘No, we’re not doing this wacky adventure, we’re staying at home like normal ponies’?” Octavia sighed, and drank a sip of her tea. It was getting colder. “Is this unfair of me, to think these things? To want these things?”

“Octavia, speaking as possibly the only pony in Equestria who knows what you’re going through and talking about, take it from me: these are okay thoughts to have,” said Future Octavia. “I love Vinyl, and you do too, but you know what? She is very impulsive and doesn’t always think ahead before doing things. She does sometimes neglect to think of us when she does things.”

Octavia frowned. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Vinyl is silly, forgetful, and very, very idiotic at times. But that doesn’t change that she’s a good pony, and that all of those things are just part of what makes her the pony she is.” Future Octavia finished the last of her tea in one sip. “With that in mind, can you honestly say that you don’t love her? That you would rather be with someone else?”

Octavia continued staring into her tea as she thought it over. Her future self was absolutely right when she said that Vinyl was very idiotic…but she was also right in saying that that was what made Vinyl who she was. Octavia thought back to all the times she and Vinyl had spent together since they had met. All the moments they’d experienced, as they’d gone from reluctant travelling companions, to friends, to housemates, to lovers.

From the moment they’d met, Octavia had known Vinyl to be…well, the pony she was. There were times when she had hated Vinyl, and times when she had loved her. But if Vinyl had been any different, if those moments had changed – would Octavia still have all of the great memories which she had? Hay, would Octavia and Vinyl still be together? It would probably mean that Octavia’s life would be better – she certainly wouldn’t be time travelling – but to live a life without Vinyl in it?

“Of course I love her,” said Octavia quietly. “How could I not?”

Future Octavia smiled at Octavia. “That’s what I thought,” she said.


===============================


 

“Man, this cider is great!” said Vinyl Scratch as she finished off her latest pint of it. “I can’t believe how lucky you future guys have it!” She and her future self were, predictably, still in the same bar that they had entered several hours ago. The whole place was just like a regular bar, only with more metallic tables and shinier floors. If the bartender had any thoughts on the similarities of the two near-identical ponies in his bar, he kept them to himself.

“That cider’s exactly the same as you have in your present-day Canterlot, give or take some genetic modifications to the apples it came from,” said Future Vinyl, somewhat grumpily. “You were supposed to have the cocktails! I brought you in here since we’ve got all this stuff here in the future you don’t have, and all you’ve done is stuck to cider!” She drank from a bright blue cocktail she had ordered as she finished.

Vinyl frowned at that, idly running a hoof around the rim of her empty glass. “But I like cider!” she whined. “It’s so much better than- than beer and crap! Because, y’see, cider’s sweet, yeah? Like, really, really -”

“I’m just saying, I think that it’s a dumb idea not to at least try some of what we’ve got in your future,” interrupted Future Vinyl, finishing off her cocktail a moment later.

“You’re a dumb idea!” growled Vinyl. Upon finishing, she slumped forwards onto the table, apparently having given up on supporting herself.

“Hey Vinyl, you realise that you’re an idiot, right?” said Future Vinyl, also slumping forwards as she laughed. She grinned at her temporal duo. “But that’s okay, because that’s part of what makes us awesome!”

“Being stupid…makes us awesome?” asked Vinyl. She briefly glanced up at her glass, remembered that it was empty, then went back to looking at Future Vinyl. “Do you think Octavia minds?”

“Huh?” asked Future Vinyl, suddenly serious again. “Minds what?”

“Do you think that she minds that we’re so…I dunno, different to her?” Vinyl asked, half-speaking to the table. “I mean, at the time, I didn’t really think that much about it, but looking back, wasn’t it kinda a jerk move in the Amarezon?”

“The Amarezon?” Future Vinyl squinted as she thought back. “What are you talking about, Vinyl?”

“You remember when we first met Octavia?” asked Vinyl. “How we sorta…tricked her into exploring the Amarezon with us?”

“Heh, ‘exploring the Amarezon’,” chuckled Future Vinyl. She was quickly punched by Vinyl.

“Future Vinyl! I’m being serious!” said Vinyl. “I’m…I dunno.” She swallowed, apparently choosing her words carefully. “Aren’t we kinda…jerks? Wasn’t that a bad thing to do?”

Future Vinyl winced. Reaching out a hoof to Vinyl’s shoulder, she said, “Oh…Vinyl, mate, you’re looking at this all wr-”

“Am I?” exclaimed Vinyl unexpectedly, causing Future Vinyl to flinch. “Am I really, future me? Because…I know that Octavia doesn’t like a lot of the stuff I do, and I know that I screw up a lot, and, and…” She fell silent, but it was obvious that she was struggling to decide what to say next.

“Oy vey,” muttered Future Vinyl, running a hoof through her short mane. Watching her future self struggle to express herself, she was starting to remember back in the relatively early days of her relationship with Octavia, when she had been having thoughts like Vinyl was expressing now.

“Sometimes, I- I want to apologise to Octavia, to tell her that I just don’t think before doing things,” said Vinyl, exasperated. “And I want to, I really do. But…but then I worry, y’know? I worry that she’ll suddenly go, ‘Huh, Vinyl, I hadn’t considered that, but yeah, you kinda are a jerk. See ya!’”

Future Vinyl reached out a hoof to Vinyl’s shoulder once more, and lightly placed it there. “Past Vinyl…you’ll be fine with Octavia. You’re overthinking this.”

“Oh yeah?” asked Vinyl, frowning. “What makes you so sure?”

Future Vinyl couldn’t help grinning at that. “Well, y’know, I am you, twenty-five years in the future, and my relationship with Octavia’s going pretty strong, so…yeah, I’m pretty sure you’ll be fine,” she said. “And Octavia’s a grown pony. If she didn’t like you…if she wanted to leave, she’d do it. Or at the very least, she’d talk to you maturely about it, not just leave you impulsively without discussing it.”

Vinyl looked slightly more pleased upon hearing that, but was still worried. “But…do you think I’m a bad pony, future me? Don’t you think that we’ve, well, done some bad stuff?”

Future Vinyl sighed. “Vinyl, you and I know what we’ve done in our past, and even if you’re moaning and being all angsty about it right now, we both know that there’s nothing there we regret. We’re good ponies, alright?” She shook her head. “Look, do you want me to get you some water or something? You seem pretty drunk?” To herself, she muttered, “Swear I never used to get that drunk that quickly…”

Vinyl opened her mouth, then closed it. Her eyes focused on the floor for a minute, then she slowly turned away from Future Vinyl so that she was staring at the surface of their table once more. Throughout all of this, Future Vinyl patiently waited, only shifting herself slightly to adjust her sitting position.

Finally, Vinyl spoke. “Even if you think that I’m a good pony, and even if I am…how do I know that Octavia thinks that?” she asked. “Octavia’s the best pony in all of Equestria to me, and if she didn’t think that, I-I don’t know what I’d do,” she said.

“Well then, it’s a very good thing that I do think that you’re a good pony, Vinyl,” said a new voice as a grey-coated mare slid up behind Vinyl and kissed her on the cheek. “A great pony, in fact.”

“How did I know that you two would be in here?” asked Future Octavia, herself sneaking up behind Future Vinyl. They too shared a quick kiss.

“Easy: I’m just that damn sexy that you can sense me wherever I am,” said Future Vinyl, leaning in for another kiss but missing due to her eyepatch screwing with her depth perception.

“O-Octavia?” asked Vinyl. “I- I-”

“I don’t know what you two were talking about, Vinyl,” said Octavia, “but rest assured, I care about you and I love you just as much as I always have.”

For the first time in several hours, Vinyl flashed her trademark grin. “Same to you, beautiful.”

“Oh man, I love a happy ending!” said Future Vinyl, watching her past self and her partner together.

“Didn’t you say that you were going to try and keep your past self sober today?” asked Future Octavia, smiling slyly.

“…Baby don’t hurt me?” asked Future Vinyl, smiling awkwardly.

“What say we ditch this crazy future and keep trying to get home?” Vinyl asked Octavia cheerfully. “Cool as our future selves are, I want to get back home with you and…. I dunno, but I want to do it, whatever it is!”

“I think that you missed a few words there Vinyl, but whatever,” said Octavia. Turning to her future counterpart, she asked, “Would you be offended if we-?”

“Not in the slightest,” said Future Octavia. “We time travelled from here when we were in your position – how did you think I knew to find Vinyl and Past Vinyl here?”

“And after all, time stops for no pony!” said Future Vinyl happily. Future Octavia frowned at her.

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked, confused.

“Nothing!” said Future Vinyl. “But I’ve been wanting to say it all day, and I’m sick of waiting!”

“Alright, babe – let’s spin this,” said Vinyl to Octavia, grinning as her horn started to light up.

“Have a good trip,” said Future Octavia, waving to her past self and her lover. “We’ll see you again in twenty-five…well, you’ll see yourselves…oh, you know what I mean!”

“See you guys later!” said Vinyl as her horn got brighter, with more energy surging into the spell.

“Hope everything goes well!” added Octavia.

“Does anypony else think it’s odd that the bartender is completely unfazed by all of this?” asked Future Vinyl.
A moment later, the usual portal had appeared, ripping and slicing its way through space-time as before. Vinyl and Octavia were sucked into it and disappeared to an unknown time, waving goodbye to their future counterparts one last time.

“Man, we were pretty cool back then, weren’t we?” asked Future Vinyl once the portal had disappeared.

“I rather think we were, although I forgot how uptight my past self could be at times,” Future Octavia agreed. “Still, I am a little worried for them…”

It took Future Vinyl a moment to realise what she was talking about. “Oh, come on! You know that it’s an accident – I tried to sober her up, and I forgot what time you were coming! And anyway, we survived that place they’ve gone too, didn’t we?”

“Mmm, I suppose you’ve got quite a valid point,” said Future Octavia as the two ponies started to exit the bar. As they continued, she let out a small chuckle.

“What is it?” Future Vinyl asked.

“Just a thought I had,” said Future Octavia. “Imagine if we’d told them that not only are we married, but what happened right after the wedding…”

> Chapter Three: Time and a Half
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The door to the throne room burst open. Into the cold, stone room entered a brown-coated unicorn, moving quickly. The queen, sitting on her throne, raised an eyebrow at this. She recognised this pony as a messenger, and wondered what news he had to bring her.

“Your majesty!” the messenger said, kneeling before the queen. “Mine hooves have rushed as quickly as I might move them, that I could inform thee of this important news. Mayhaps I be granted permission to speak to thine ears only, that you would know of it?”

“Speak, messenger,” said the queen, idly examining a hoof of hers as she did so. “Speak, that I may know this news of utmost importance, and find out what happens in my lands. Speak, that I may decide what to do with this information, and act accordingly.”

“Of course, my lady,” said the messenger, still kneeling before the queen. His knees were already aching on the cold, stone floor, but he didn’t say anything about it. Although there were several torches lit around the room, attached to large columns supporting the ceiling, the throne room was as cold as it got. The lack of ponies in the room – aside from the queen and the messenger, there were just a few ministers and guards – only contributed to the cold.

“The news that I have for you, the news that has brought me from the farthest corner of the castle to thine throne room, shall be spoken, your majesty. I am sure that it shall please thee, for –”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry it up, buddy,” said the queen impatiently, waving a hoof. A few of her ministers gave her odd looks.

“Of course, your majesty. Mine most important news is as follows – ” the messengers took a moment to clear his throat “- thine hoofmaiden wouldst speak to thee, if it is acceptable.”

“Mine hoofmaiden wishes to speak to me, eh?” asked the queen, placing a hoof to her chin. “Very well then, if that be her wish, then by all means shall I speak with her! Ministers! I shall take my leave, that I wouldst commune with mine hoofmaiden.”

“But your majesty, we still have yet to discuss thine trading agreement with the pegasi,” said one minister. The others around him nodded.

“In addition, we would have need to speak to thee about thine additional funding to the magical research division,” added another minister. “Couldst thou not wait until thine – uh, ‘evening ministrations’ – with thine hoofmaiden to speak to her?”

The queen stood up off her throne, glaring at her ministers. “Stallions! Am I not the queen? Am I not thine ruler? If I wish to speak to mine hoofmaiden, I shall do it at a time of mine pleasing, not at a time of thine pleasing! So I say, and so it shall be!” With that, she turned her back to them without waiting for a reply, and exited the throne room, heading off to find her hoofmaiden.

It didn’t take her long to find her. “Your majesty,” said the hoofmaiden, kneeling before the queen as she entered the bedroom where she was. There was a large bed next to the hoofmaiden, and all around the room were various dressers and cupboards, presumably containing clothes. One wall was covered mostly by a tapestry. Like the rest of the castle, the room was made of stone.

“Ah, cut out that ‘your majesty’ crap around me, Octavia,” said the queen, shutting the door behind her. “I know you’re taking the piss, but gee, I just need to – I dunno, hear somepony speak modern Equestrian.”

“Vinyl, even though this isn’t our native time, this is technically modern Equestria, to all of the ponies here,” said Octavia. “We are in a time before the three tribes worked together to form Equestria, after all.”

“Argh, you know what I mean,” said Vinyl, letting herself fall backwards onto the bed by which Octavia was standing. “I just get so sick of all of those ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and all that crap.” She shook her head. “Anyway, enough about that crap – what’s up?”

“Forgive my impatience, but…” Octavia grimaced. “Any luck on casting the time travel spell yet?”

“Let’s give it a go and see,” said Vinyl. As usual, her horn glowed a light blue colour as she summoned up the magical energy necessary to cast the spell. As with the last few times she had tried it, however, she soon began wincing with pain, and it wasn’t long before her head had begun to ache enough that she cancelled out the spell. “No dice.”

“Damn,” said Octavia, punching a wall lightly in frustration. “Two weeks!” she said, more harshly and impatiently. “Two whole weeks we’ve been here, and even though you’re fine with most of your magic, you still can’t cast this one damn spell!”

“Hey now, I’m sure that I’ll be able to –” started Vinyl, but Octavia wasn’t listening.

“Why? Why doesn’t that damn spell work?” she asked rhetorically. “When are we going to get the bloody hell home?!”

“Octavia!” exclaimed Vinyl. “Calm down, babe. It’s gonna be alright.”

Octavia looked as though she wanted to keep venting her anger, but instead, she took a deep breath, then jumped onto the bed so that she was lying beside Vinyl. “Sorry, Vinyl,” she said, “it’s just that being here for so long without any sign of when we can leave…it’s frustrating to say the least. In the previous time periods, at least we left fairly early and had our future selves to help us, respectively.”

Vinyl nudged herself closer to Octavia. “Yeah, being here kinda is a bitch. The only reason I can think for the spell still not working –”

“- is because you were drunk when you cast it, so it messed with how badly the spell affected you, yes,” said Octavia, finishing Vinyl’s sentence. “We’ve discussed this several times.” Octavia rolled over, so that she was on her side facing Vinyl.

“Saying it out loud helps me to think about it,” explained Vinyl, sounding a little sheepish. As she started to stroke Octavia’s hair, she added, “On the plus side, considering that we’re in that time of history before the unification of the three tribes, things could always be a lot worse.”

“You just say that because you’re the queen of the unicorns!” said Octavia, laughing slightly. “I still can’t believe that because of that – because of that bloody picture you drew in that cave all those millions of years ago of yourself, they thought that you were the deity ‘Awesome’, and made you a queen. It’s ridiculous, is what it is!”

“Are you kidding?! It’s amazing!” said Vinyl, also starting to laugh now. “Do you know how great it is to be queen?!”

“I’m surprised that you’ve kept the position,” said Octavia, serious now. “Since when have you been into politics? I thought you hated them.”

“I do!” said Vinyl, sitting upright as she spoke. “But I figure that while I’m in a position of power, I can be a sort of a…frozen horse in the system, y’know?”

Octavia stared at Vinyl as she too sat upright, unsure what to say to that. She opened her mouth, trying to work out where to start in correcting Vinyl’s choice of words. How to even begin to explain to Vinyl the concept of one of the most ingenious and legendary ways to win a war, and how it later became a figure of speech? Even as Octavia opened her mouth to speak, she found herself closing it, already foreseeing Vinyl’s lack of interest in the topic by her excited, puppy-like expression.

“See, I figure that while I’m here,” said Vinyl, noticing Octavia’s confusion, “I’ll set things up! I’ll plant sleeping agents, and then years later – when we’re in our own time – everything will come together! They’ll wake up, and they’ll help me start anarchy in Equestria! Anarchy will reign, and during this period of anarchy, I will be the pony who rules!”

“Oh really?” asked Octavia playfully. “What about your marefriend, huh?” She lightly punched Vinyl, causing her to giggle. “Don’t I get to rule in this…anarchy?” Octavia’s voice trailed off as she realised exactly what she’d said, and how little sense it made.

“Something wrong?” asked Vinyl, frowning.

Octavia shook her head. “No worry; you’ve certainly said sillier things before,” she said, smiling.

At this stage in the conversation, Octavia would have continued to teasingly punch Vinyl, perhaps ending the conversation with some light-hearted tickling, or kissing. It was a prospect she was fully prepared for and fully looking forwards to. As it was, as Octavia drew back her hoof oh-so-slightly, several things happened – the door to the room burst open, the doors to both of the cupboards swung open, and in front of the tapestry, a small surge of magic revealed a pony who had been pressed against the wall, apparently hidden by magic until the time was right to strike.

From the cupboards and the door to the room, unicorns leapt out, one through each entrance. They wore no clothes or distinguishing items, save for a rag tied around each of their muzzles, disguising them at least partially. As was to be expected, they were unicorns. Each of them, as well as the pony who had been hidden against the tapestry, wielded a weapon of some sort – swords, daggers, axes, and even a mace. The ponies all, without needing to say anything, begun to approach the two mares on the bed.

Fortunately, Vinyl and Octavia’s instincts had been honed by the multitude of fights they had participated in by this stage of their lives, in addition to their COBRA training, and so their reaction was immediate. Both ponies leapt up so that they were standing on the bed, and stood with their flanks together, covering sides of the bed. As it was against a wall, naturally, there was little chance of them being flanked.

“Vinyl? Any idea who these ponies are?” Octavia asked, preparing herself to leap forwards and drive her hoof into the nearest pony.

“I must be a better ruler than I thought!” said Vinyl excitedly. “I must have organised the sleeping agents without realising it, and now they’re ready to strike! Begin the revolution!” To her side, a loud smacking noise was heard as Octavia slammed a hoof into her face.

“By the spirits of chaos and order, ‘twould seem that the queen is as much a problem as they say she is!” said one of the ponies, pausing as he reached the edge of the bed in apparent surprise.

“Forsooth, mine ally,” said the pony next to him. “Brothers! Let us all carry out this mission which we have been granted, that order may be restored to the kingdom! We must deal with this problem and eliminate the Earth pony!”

“Deal with this problem? You ponies are trying to kill Vinyl and I?” asked Octavia, bouncing slightly on the bed’s springs. Using the momentum from it, she flew off the bed and towards the nearest pony, crashing into him with her full body weight behind her. From there, she rolled off him and into the pony behind him, who fortunately didn’t have the sense of mind to levitate his sword blade-first before him.

For her part, Vinyl did a backwards somersault as one of the assassins climbed onto the bed, before levitating his sword downwards away from her. It stabbed into the mattress harmlessly, a moment before Vinyl levitated it back so that the handle hit the assassin on the chin firmly. “Aw man, my bed’s totally got a rip in it!” she complained as she bounced forwards, using the mattress’ springs for momentum as Octavia had, punching her assassin in the face. “Now I’m going to have to get a new cover for it and everything!”

“That’s your biggest concern in all of this?” asked Octavia as she slid her back hooves against one of the attackers in a sweeping motion, knocking him to the ground. “That your covers – argh!” Not looking behind her, she had received an axe wound to the shoulder. In response, she grabbed the attacker’s head and forcefully pushed it into the ground with as much strength as she could muster. “That your covers got ripped?” Octavia panted as she turned back to face the pony she’d knocked to the ground, who was already on his hooves.

“Hey, these are really nice covers!” said Vinyl, lazily using her magic to grab the assailant on the bed and throw him to the ground. “You should know – you sleep in this bed too!” Vinyl jumped off the bed and landed directly onto the pony she’d thrown off, knocking the wind out of him.

Octavia, for her part, was rapidly backing away from one of the attackers, who was now swinging his sword in broad arcs at her. Having regained his composure after her initial attack, he was smart enough not to let her get close to her after seeing what she had done to his associates. Gritting her teeth, Octavia looked for a way to get past the sword and to the vulnerable pony, but saw no immediate way. The assassin grinned, aware of the advantage he had.

“Give up information on thine Earth pony masters – tell us how thou hast brainwashed our queen – and I might let you live,” the assassin said, rotating his sword so that the tip was pointed directly at Octavia.

“I haven’t done anything to the – urgh, queen,” said Octavia, groaning in spite of herself. “What she’s told you is true – I’m her hoofmaiden, and I am loyal to her.”

“Thou wouldst willingly work for a unicorn?” scoffed the assassin. “You lie! No Earth pony would work for a unicorn – for what force in this land could make two separate races work together? What force could make thou treat thine queen as an equal, as she treat you as one?” he asked. “No, thou wouldst rather die than work with a unicorn! And die you shall!” With that, he used his telekinesis to throw the sword at Octavia, the point flying towards her.

Octavia had been prepared for it, but still hesitated for a split second as she registered that, yes, avoiding the sword was what she wanted to do. Throwing herself to the floor, Octavia knocked the wind out of herself, the sword flying over her head a moment after she had done so. With the force it had been thrown at, it stuck into the bed, vibrating silently. Octavia released a breath she hadn’t realised she had been holding, realising how closely she had just come to death.

“You…assassin…” she said, grinning at the assassin. “Whoever you are – whatever your name is – I don’t care. You say that there’s no force that could get two ponies such as Vinyl and I to work together?”

Scowling, the assassin pulled his sword out of the bed, and aimed it so that it was pointing towards Octavia, still lying prone on the ground. “Thine last moments are swiftly approaching,” said the assassin quietly. “For thine own sake, thou may wish not to lie to thineself in them.”

“There is a force that exists, and it has a name,” said Octavia, still grinning. A second later, a giant white blur flew across the room and tackled the assassin to the ground, causing him to lose his grip on his sword. “It’s called love,” Octavia said, getting up and walking over to her partner beating up the assassin.

“I don’t think you could have said that any cheesier if you’d wanted to,” said Vinyl, momentarily stopping her assault to face Octavia. “Good timing though – I’d just finished knocking out the rest of the assassins, so this guy’s the only one left. Now, about those bed covers…”

Octavia rolled her eyes. “There’ll be some spare covers in a cupboard somewhere, Vinyl,” she said.

 “The cupboard!” gasped Vinyl. “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Personally, I’m more interested in this guy,” Octavia said, gesturing to the assassin, now sporting a heavily bloodied face. “Who sent you to kill us?”

“Thou thinkest that I would answer thou, an Earth pony? Or the queen she has enslaved?” the assassin asked, grinning in spite of his injuries. “Thou must think me a fool. Why wouldst I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” asked Octavia. “We can hurt you much further if we want.”

“Or I could give you something cool. Like teaching you how to play chess!” said Vinyl. Octavia raised an eyebrow at her. “What? Chess is fun, and I bet he doesn’t know how to play!”

“Be that as it may…” said Octavia, shaking her head slightly but smiling nonetheless, “tell us who sent you to kill us,” she said to the assassin.

The assassin’s grin widened. “How about…no?” he asked. Before Vinyl or Octavia could react, he had slammed his head into the ground, knocking himself out. The two took a moment to take it in, not having expected it.

“Crap,” said Vinyl, breaking the silence, “can you believe all of that blood he just left?”


===============================


 

“So, you think that one of your ministers sent the assassins?” said Octavia quietly. After calling some guards to clean up the mess that had been caused by the attack and getting medical attention to where Octavia had been stabbed by the axe, which was now covered in bandages, the two ponies were slowly walking through the corridors of the castle. There was to be a banquet that night- as it was, there was a banquet in the castle virtually every night, it being the norm for the cooks of the castle to provide an overly elaborate meal for their queen – and they were slowly heading to the large dining hall through the castle corridors.

“It makes sense, Octavia,” said Vinyl. “Whoever hired the assassins would have to have a lot of money, which the ministers would have, and whoever it is would want to benefit from both our deaths – I secretly named you my successor should I die before we time travel out of here, which many ponies don’t know, so whoever wanted us both killed obviously wants the power of the throne for themselves, and is trying to get it. Any one of the ministers would be able to install and manipulate a puppet leader if we were both killed, so it must have been one of them.”

“That’s some…impressive logic, Vinyl,” said Octavia. “I suppose that we’ll have to work out which minister hired them then, if you’re correct.”

“Sure thing – I don’t think we’ve done political intrigue before, have we?” asked Vinyl. “Should be good fun, if we can pull it off.”

“…If your idea of fun is trying to work out who tried to have us killed, sure,” said Octavia, shaking her head. “Do you still that we won’t be able to get any information out of the assassins?”

Vinyl gave a small shrug. “I dunno, Octavia. They’re professionals, so they might be trained not to talk, but you did see me tell the guards to interrogate them, so who knows what will turn up?” She looked a bit hesitant. “I’ve got to say though – I’m a little worried about this banquet. If I’m right, and one of the ministers is behind the attack, then they’ll know by now that I’m still alive. There could be another assassination attempt on us later tonight.”

“In a large, public area like the dining hall?” asked Octavia incredulously. She shook her head. “Somehow, I don’t see an assassination attempt happening in such an open place as here.” As she spoke, she and Vinyl entered a large hall filled with long, rectangular tables. Most seats were already filled, with the exception of two at the head of the table. There were candles and fireplaces lit for light and warmth, and although there was food placed on the tables, none of it had been eaten yet. As soon as everypony noticed the two new arrivals, they all stopped what they were doing and greeted them warmly.

“Huh, maybe you’re right, Octavia,” said Vinyl as she and Octavia walked to their seats at the head of the table, directly below a chandelier. “Seeing all these ponies here…yeah, this does feel pretty safe.” She sat down in her seat, which was a large, ornate chair. To her left sat Octavia, whose chair was less fancy but still more comfortable than most other ponies’, and to her right sat a minister dressed in black robes. With Vinyl seated, the ponies all took this as a sign that they could begin eating.
 
“Ah, you have returned, mine queen!” said the minister warmly. “Good to see that thou art doing well after that assassination attempt which mine hooves definitely were not behind!”
 
“Thanks, Minister von Doom, amateur poison brewer!” said Vinyl cheerfully.
 
“Before thou begins thine meal, wouldst thou like to partake in this particular formula which I have concocted with mine own hooves?” asked Minister von Doom. As he spoke, he levitated over a goblet with a bubbling, acidic-smelling liquid inside it. It sizzled slightly in the goblet as it was moved over to Vinyl. “I can assure thee, it will most certainly change thine and thine hoofmaiden’s lives greatly once it has been ingested.”
 
“Life-changing? Wow, that sounds just like that sort of thing that’s perfect for me!” said Vinyl excitedly. “Come on, Octavia, we have to try this!”
 
“Are you sure?” asked Octavia, looking up from the salad she had briefly started eating. “It looks somewhat…toxic.”
 
“Pfft! What, you think that lovable old Minister von Doom, a former necromancer and chemical expert, would be brewing something poisonous for us to drink?” Vinyl scoffed. Leaning in closer to Octavia, she muttered, “It’s that Minister Peace that we need to really keep an eye on. I don’t think I trust a pony with a name like that…”
 
“You mean the only member of your court other than yourself to treat me as an equal?” Octavia asked.

“She’s obviously just trying to lure you into her circle of trust, so she can take advantage of you!” exclaimed Vinyl, slightly too loudly. “But too bad for her that we saw through her nefarious plan, right, Octavia?”
 
“Everypony is looking at you, Vinyl,” whispered Octavia. It was true; most of the ponies in the room were looking up from their meal and to their queen, shouting out some sort of conspiracy theory.
 
“So they should be! I’m their damn queen!” said Vinyl excitedly, standing up as she pounded a hoof on the table. A moment later, she sat back down and spoke to Octavia as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “Now, where were we?”
 
“You were about to drink mine delicious potion, your majesty,” said Minister von Doom, who had been watching the two ponies as they spoke. “I wouldst appreciate it if thou wouldst drink it now, whilst the brew is most…potent.”
 
“Sure thing!” said Vinyl, reaching out for the goblet with a hoof. She picked it up and was just about to drink it, when –
 
“Wait!” said Octavia. Vinyl paused. “Can I drink it first? It looks delicious, and I don’t think I can wait any longer to try it.”
 
“Sure!” said Vinyl, without hesitation. She passed it to Octavia, who, without hesitation in spite of Minister von Doom watching her, tipped it upside down so that all of the contents spilled onto the table. Where they landed, a strong hissing noise could be heard, and smoke appeared. Within moments the effects of the liquid were readily seen, as it ate greedily into the wood of the table. Amongst the loud talking, eating, and drinking, nopony noticed aside from Octavia, Vinyl, and Minister von Doom.
 
“Whoops,” said Octavia in a dull tone as she stared at Minister von Doom. “My hoof slipped.”
 
“Curses! Were I an assassin attempting to kill the queen and you, her hoofmaiden, that would have foiled my plan, and that is what I would have said,” said Minister von Doom coldly. “Luckily for you, I am not, or I would surely have further plans in place for should that one fail.”
 
Vinyl nodded in agreement to von Doom and leaned in to Octavia. “He’s got a good point – it’s a good thing that he’s not an assassin, or we’d totally be at his mercy!”
 
“…When you say things like that, Vinyl, I honestly wonder about you,” said Octavia. “How could you seriously not be suspicious of that?”
 
“Of what?” asked Vinyl, blinking in confusion. Her eyes were wide open, her mouth was pursed. She had never looked more innocent.
 
“Let’s just say that you confuse me and leave it at that,” said Octavia, rolling her eyes.
 
“Either way, Minister von Doom’s got a point!” said Vinyl. “There could be an assassin around here - we’d better keep our eyes peeled extra-wide!”
 
“Keep thine eyes peeled for what?” asked a new arrival to the table. A pink-coated unicorn with a yellow mane had just approached Vinyl and Octavia.
 
“Speak of the devil,” growled Vinyl under her breath.
 
“Good evening, Minister Peace,” said Octavia friendlily. “How are you doing this evening?”
 
“Very well, thank you, hoofmaiden Octavia,” said Minister Peace cheerfully as she pulled up a chair and sat next to Octavia. “Whilst waiting for mine meal to arrive, I had thought it best to check on mine queen and see that she is in prime condition after her brief scuffle with those assassins.”
 
“Oh, goodness, it would take a lot more than that to stop Vinyl!” said Octavia, laughing jovially. To her side, Vinyl was busily talking to Minister von Doom once more. “At least, for as long as I’m by her side.”
 
“Really? You two seem close, particularly for an…Earth pony,” commented Minister Peace. Although the words irritated Octavia, she realised that Minister Peace was combatting the racism of the current times as best she knew how, and that she was still by far one of the friendliest ponies there.
 
“Yes, well, remind me to tell you of how Vinyl and I met sometime…or maybe don’t, it probably won’t make a lot of sense from your perspective,” said Octavia, smiling at the memory. Turning her attention to Minister Peace, she found the unicorn staring upwards at the ceiling before breaking off from whatever she was looking at.
 
“I am sure that it is quite the tale, and would love to hear it some time,” said Minister Peace, smiling. Turning to Vinyl, she said, “Mine queen, how art thou after that assassination attempt earlier? Thine hoofmaiden insists that thou art fine, but I thought it best that I asked myself.”
 
“Huh?” Vinyl asked, turning from Minister von Doom. “Oh, y’know, I’m fine. It’d take more than that to stop me, especially while I’ve got my bestest buddy Octavia by my side!” Turning to Octavia, she said, much more enthusiastically than she had said to Minister Peace, “Hey Octavia, did you know that Minister von Doom here once nearly created a spell to destroy all non-unicorns in Equestria back in his necromancer days? How cool is that?!”
 
Having resumed eating, Octavia briefly coughed and choked on a piece of lettuce before managing to survive the ordeal and swallow it.
 
“From a magical perspective, of course,” added Vinyl casually, apparently unaware of the effect her words had had on Octavia. “A spell like that would be…well, it would be even more complex and powerful than the- you know.” She lowered her voice and leant in towards Octavia. “Than the time travel spell that brought us here.”
 
Minister von Doom nodded, in spite of not having heard Vinyl’s last few words. “I mayhaps could have completed it had I had more corpses to experiment with , but there are never enough around to work with,” he said, grinning.
 
“Isn’t that just always the case?!” agreed Vinyl. “Probably. I dunno. I haven’t tried necromancy yet.”
 
“…Oh sweet mother of Celestia, the spirit zombies are coming,” said Octavia, wincing.
 
“I know not of what you ponies are speaking, but nevertheless, I think I had best return to mine seat now that I know mine queen is safe,” said Minister Peace to the entire group. “Mayhaps I shall return later in the eve – it depends upon what happens next.” With a polite nod to everypony, she walked off, slowing briefly as she cast her eyes upwards above the ponies once more.
 
“Minister Peace?” muttered Octavia, frowning as she followed the unicorn’s gaze. “What are you looking –” Reacting with the speed of thought, Octavia kicked herself out of her chair and launched herself at Vinyl in the one motion as hard as she could. Forcing her body weight into the pony as she had one of the assassins earlier, Octavia’s leap knocked Vinyl into Minister von Doom, sending all three to the floor, grazing themselves in the process. Not a second later the gigantic chandelier, which the three had been sitting below obliviously, crashed into the table and seats heavily. For several moments Vinyl, Octavia, and Minister von Doom simply stared at it in silence, realising how close they had been to death.
 
“Oww – my shoulder,” said Octavia a second later, realising that a sharp throbbing pain had begun where she had been stabbed earlier, apparently having been injured further in the leap.
 
“You want to get more bandages or something put on it?” Vinyl asked as she picked herself up off the floor and helped Octavia up. Everypony in the room was watching them, murmuring and whispering about what had just happened. Beside them, Minister von Doom had also gotten up.
 
“It’s something of a dull pain, but I will manage,” said Octavia.
“Right…Well, um, sorry about that, uh, disturbance, everypony,” said Vinyl to the guests at the dining hall. “Your queen and her hoofmaiden will move somewhere else, while, uh, I guess it’s cleaned up?” Although some ponies looked like they were about to protest, they nevertheless reluctantly quietened down and resumed talking as they had been before.
 
Octavia started to head over to a table which she could see was empty, but was held back by Vinyl. “We need to talk,” whispered Vinyl.
 
“We do?”
 
“It’s Minister Peace,” said Vinyl, walking Octavia over to a corner where they wouldn’t be heard as easily. “What should we do about her?”
 
Octavia frowned. “…Invite her to our table?”
 
“I mean about the fact that she probably tried to assassinate us,” said Vinyl seriously. “I think that she used her magic to loosen the chandelier just then – don’t you find it a bit suspicious that it fell down just as she was leaving?”
 
“What? No, it was a coincidence,” said Octavia. “Probably,” she added as Vinyl raised her eyebrows.
 
“You don’t think it’s suspicious?” asked Vinyl. “The way she’s been trying to manipulate you, get you into her circle?”
 
“That’s what makes you think that she’s behind the assassins?” asked Octavia. “Because she’s trying to be friendly to me?”
 
“Well, that and the face that her name is ‘Peace’,” said Vinyl, waving a hoof in the air idly. “C’mon, bad guys in stories like this always have names like that for irony.”
 
“Her name is what makes you susp- wait, what do you mean ‘stories like this’?” asked Octavia, drawing air quotes as she spoke.
 
“You know, stories similar to this situation we’re in right now,” clarified Vinyl. “Which isn’t a story.”
 
“Oh, right,” said Octavia. “But as it is, how can you suspect a pony called Peace but not the one called von Doom?”
 
“How can you suggest that a pony named von Doom is evil just because of his name?” Vinyl asked.
 
“I didn’t-”
 
“That’s being judgemental, Octavia! Is it because he used to be a necromancer? Because necromancers are ponies too!”
 
Octavia rubbed a hoof into her eyes in apparent tiredness. “You’re not going to address the fact that he tried getting us to drink…I don’t know, poison? Acid?”
 
“…You have no way of proving that,” said Vinyl, pointing a hoof at Octavia. “Minister von Doom is a perfectly friendly and normal pony, and I’ll bet that he’s a hell of a lot more innocent than Minister Peace!”
 
“And I’ll bet that he’s the one who hired the assassins, and tried to kill us earlier!” countered Octavia.
 
“Right then! What are we betting?” asked Vinyl.
 
“…Oh, I meant it more like, a figure of speech,” said Octavia after a moment of confusion. “You know, it says a lot about how much we’ve survived and our confidence as a result that we place bets on who’s trying to kill us.”
 
“Isn’t that great?!” asked Vinyl enthusiastically. “We’re so chill about death – we’re awesome!” Looking at Minister Peace across the room as she spoke, she said, “How about we say that if Minister Peace is behind the assassins, you have to get drunk with me and…I dunno, drink wine off my chest!”
 
Octavia blushed, hiding a nervous giggle behind a hoof. “And if I’m right, and Minister von Doom is behind the assassins, and tried killing us earlier with poison?”
 
“Then you get the satisfaction of telling me that you were right in Pony Heaven,” said Vinyl, “because it would be pretty damn unexpected if an assassination attempt came from von Doom.” She suddenly gasped as a new train of thought hit her. “What if we became ghosts, instead? We could haunt Equestria, and go wherever we want… how cool would that be? ‘Vinyl and Octavia Become Ghosts’?”
 
Octavia smacked a hoof into her face. “How about we just head back to our dinners, and try to keep an eye out for assassins?” she asked. “We’re not going to become ghosts now, nor in the near future.”
 
“That’s what you say, Octavia,” said Vinyl as she trotted over to a table with her partner, “but just you wait and see! Maybe we’ll end up become ghosts in the very next time period we visit!” Sitting next to Minister von Doom, who had also relocated after the chandelier had crashed, she greeted him with a friendly, “Hi, Minister von Doom, my most friendly and reformed of ministers, who would never attempt to kill Octavia and I!”
 
“Hello, mine queen, the monarch whom I definitely adore and would never plot to kill,” returned Minister von Doom. “May I give you a hug, that I may show my concern for you?”
 
“Sure!” said Vinyl, reaching out her forelegs to Minister von Doom. He too stretched out his forelegs, as something glinted in a hoof-
 
“No!” exclaimed Octavia, grabbing Vinyl and pulling her backwards. A moment later, the dagger in Minister von Doom’s hoof stabbed at where Vinyl’s back would have been. Roughly pushing Vinyl, who still wasn’t sure what had just happened, to one side, Octavia took a step forwards and punched von Doom in the muzzle.
 
“What is wrong, hoofm-” Minister von Doom was cut off as Octavia punched him again several times, before one final punch was enough to knock him to the floor, lying on his back.
 
Placing a hoof over his throat, Octavia quietly said, “Minister von Doom, what in Celestia’s name do you think you’re doing?” The entire room was watching tensely, except for Vinyl, who was casually sitting on a chair and grinning as she watched the scene unfold.
 
“Who’s name?” asked von Doom, confused.
 
“You know, Cele- look, I just caught you trying to stab Vinyl – the queen – with a dagger,” said Octavia, glancing at where the dagger had fallen after her initial punch. “How do you explain this?”
 
“Fear not, mine friend, for the explanation is a simple one!” said von Doom. “I had been eating mine meal with that…dagger…and had forgotten to let go of it during the hug. A simple explanation, yes?” All around the room, the crowd breathed sighs of relief.
 
“The dagger has a tag attached to it saying, ‘May the puppet queen die!’” said Octavia, frowning. She increased the pressure her hoof was placing on von Doom’s throat slightly.
 
“Part of a complex spell designed to keep the dagger clean at all times.”
 
“The stabbing motion you made once I pulled Vinyl away?”
 
“Mine attempt to calm the queen via application of force to certain pressure points.”
 
“Like acupuncture!” exclaimed Vinyl, cheerfully. Octavia raised her eyebrows.
 
“You can’t seriously believe that, can you?” she asked.
 
Vinyl shrugged playfully. “Hey, it’s only loveable old Minister von Doom! How could a guy like him be trying to kill me?”
 
Octavia frowned. “Are you hearing yourself speak? You know what you’re saying? It’s one thing to nearly fall for an assassination attempt, but then to defend your assassin?” She shook her head and reluctantly stepped away from von Doom. “Follow me,” she said.
 
“Eh?” asked Vinyl as the two ponies headed towards the exit, the crowd watching in bewilderment. “Where are we headed, Octavia?”
 
“Someplace safe,” muttered Octavia. To a pair of guards standing by the exit, she said, “Keep an eye on Minister von Doom, and don’t let him out of the room. Make sure he doesn’t have any weapons on him while you’re at it.”
 
“Right. Don’t let von Doom out of the room if he has weapons on him,” one of the guards confirmed cheerfully. Octavia frowned.
 
“Err…no, don’t let him out no matter what. But make sure that he doesn’t have any weapons on him while you’re at it.”
 
“Make sure he’s got weapons on him when he’s let out,” said the same guard, nodding in confirmation.
 
“…Let him out under no circumstances,” said Octavia seriously. “Do you understand that?”
 
“Yes, of course,” said the guard, smiling.
 
“And check to see what weapons he has,” said Octavia. “Can you do that?”
 
“Of course,” said the guard. “Just one question – if he has no weapons when we search him, do we give him ours?”
 
Octavia smacked a hoof into her face. “Celestia’s Mane, no wonder they accepted Vinyl as their leader so easily.” To the guard, she said, “Just…keep an eye on von Doom, and don’t let him do anything suspicious.” She left the room.
 
“Don’t worry guys – I’m sure von Doom is innocent,” said Vinyl, grinning. “Feel free to be lenient with him.” She followed Octavia out, where it soon turned out that their destination was their bedroom. Vinyl entered after Octavia and closed the door.
 
Octavia was pacing the room, unable to keep still. She looked outside the large window for a brief moment before muttering something to herself and continuing her pacing. Vinyl, for her part, jumped onto the bed. She watched Octavia for a few moments before asking, “Whatchya doing?”
 
“Isn’t it obvious?” Octavia asked. “I’m thinking!”
 
“Geez, Octavia, you seem really stressed out,” said Vinyl, concerned. “Have you considered taking this a bit more calmly?”
 
“Calmly? You were just nearly stabbed!” Octavia exclaimed. “How can you trust – how can you stay so calm?!”
 
“How come you’re stressing out so much over something that didn’t even happen?” Vinyl countered casually. “Hay, how come you’re stressing out over something that you only thought would happen?”
 
“Because I’m concerned about you! How come you’re not stressing out more?!” Octavia asked a little too loudly.
 
“Because I want to stay calm for you,” said Vinyl simply. Octavia’s breath caught. “I hate seeing you stressing out and reacting like this. I want to try and get you to calm down and get through all of this with me like the intelligent pony I know you are.”
 
Octavia hesitated, then moved closer to Vinyl, placing a hoof gently on the unicorn’s cheek. “Vinyl, I-”
 
“Just one question,” interrupted Vinyl softly.
 
“What is it?” asked Octavia.
 
“Last time we were in here, we were attacked by assassins. Why did you bring us here if you wanted us to be safe?”
 
A moment later, there was a loud cracking noise. Octavia had had her back to the window while she faced Vinyl, but as she dimly registered the noise, she turned around to face it, since it was where the noise had originated from. As Octavia turned, she noticed that her right back leg had gone numb. That’s…odd, she thought dimly.
 
Next to her, Octavia was vaguely aware of Vinyl moving about and…shouting? But if she was shouting, why did her voice sound like it was so far away? Remembering that she had been looking for the source of the noise, Octavia forced herself to focus, and found it – the window, the one which took up nearly half of a wall, had a few panes shattered. Had they been the source of the cracking noise? But how had they been broken?
 
A moment later, there was that same cracking noise again as the windows shattered, somewhat answering Octavia’s question. But what had broken them? And what did it have to do with the fact that Octavia felt as though somepony had just punched her heavily in the chest? And why was her blood starting to seep out from her body where it felt like she had been punched? Blood wasn’t supposed to do that; it was supposed to carry around oxygen and chemicals and do all those other things that you never listened to in school.
 
“Octavia? Octavia?! Are you listening to me?!” shouted Vinyl.  She leapt off the bed, grabbed Octavia, and dragged her out from the window’s line-of-sight. In her back leg and chest, she had two small crossbow bolts embedded, apparently shot through the window.
 
“The window broke, Vinyl,” muttered Octavia hazily. “That’s where the noise came from.”
 
“Yeah, I know, babe,” said Vinyl, starting to panic. Biting her lip, she edged her head out, looking for the pony who had shot Octavia. Her and Octavia’s bedroom was a few storeys up, overlooking a courtyard. Glancing into the courtyard, Vinyl immediately spotted the sniper – a pony in a cloak who was loading some sort of magically-summoned crossbow to shoot through the window again.
 
“…That’s a terrible position to be shooting from,” said Vinyl to herself, frowning. “And what’s with the dark cloak? Stereotypical much?” A moment later, she ducked out of sight as another bolt fired towards the window, missing her by millimetres.
 
Turning back to Octavia, Vinyl was startled to find her marefriend already standing up, albeit looking shaky.  “Octavia? Get down, we need to get those bolts out of you, bandage you up, and-”
 
“I’m not that bad,” said Octavia, “I was just in shock for the first few seconds. I think that some adrenaline’s kicked in, so –”
 
“Still! We need to get you to a healer, take the bolts out and –”
 
Octavia smiled. “Heh. You know that these bolts are plugging their wounds right now, yes? They’ve ripped through some muscle, but –”
 
“How the hay do you know all of that?” Vinyl interrupted, surprised.
 
“One semester of medical biology in university as an elective,” said Octavia. “Also, it’s somewhat logical.”
 
“I just realised that I’ve never found out what you studied in university-” said Vinyl.
 
“Oh, well it was Advanced-”
 
“-but that’s not what’s important right now,” continued Vinyl. “We need to get you to a healer – I can quickly get some guards out there to take care of the sniper, and –”
 
“What, you’re not going to take care of him yourself?” Octavia asked, sticking her tongue out at Vinyl. A moment later, she winced in apparent pain.
 
“…What are you saying?” asked Vinyl, confused. “You…want me to go get the sniper? But you’ve been hurt, and –”
 
“You think that I cannot make it to a healer on my own?” asked Octavia, smirking. “I’m not that helpless, Vinyl.”
 
“But wouldn’t you rather I stay with you, in case you –”
 
“What I want is for these damn assassination attempts to be over with, so get out there and stop von Doom!” exclaimed Octavia.
 
“…You mean Minister Peace,” said Vinyl, deadpan. “There’s no way that von Doom could have gotten to the courtyard from the dining hall that fast.”
 
“Oh, whatever!” said Octavia, grinning. She went to lightly punch Vinyl, but instead found herself wincing in pain and putting her hoof back down as her chest immediately flared up with pain. “Um, okay, I definitely do need a medic. You go stop the sniper, I’ll go get some medical attention, and we’ll meet afterwards?”
 
“Sounds like a plan,” said Vinyl, kissing Octavia lightly on the cheek. “Grab some wine on the way, alright?”
 
“You are a very silly pony, Vinyl,” said Octavia, exiting the room as fast as she could manage.
 
“I’d have to be to love someone like you, Octavia,” muttered Vinyl, smiling to herself. She approached the window and briefly glanced out it. As before, the sniper was still in the courtyard, aiming at the window. “Now, how to get down there?” Vinyl asked herself, looking around the bedroom for inspiration.


===============================

 
Down in the courtyard, the sniper kept an eye on the window. Their target – the queen – hadn’t appeared for several minutes, and the sniper was wondering whether it was worth heading back inside the castle and attempting a more subtle assassination attempt. I am fairly confident that mine queen hast not seen mine face, thought the sniper, so this might be the more prudent plan.
 
As the sniper began to cast the spell that would magically dispel their summoned crossbow, they suddenly noticed movement in the window up above. Quickly cancelling the spell, they focused their aim on the window, ready to shoot a bolt the moment that the queen or her hoofmaiden reappeared. This crossbow had a spell carved into its wood which would subtly affect the bolts’ paths, moving them closer to their targets as they flew. It wasn’t perfect, but it did mean that the sniper could afford to blindly fire from a position like the courtyard and be fairly confident that they would hit their target.
 
There was further movement, and then something…rectangular…appeared. The sniper squinted, trying to make out the shape. “A…bed?” they muttered.
 
“Epic bed maneuver!” exclaimed Vinyl, jumping from the room onto the bed’s mattress, half of which was leaning precariously outside the window. Falling outside with her weight and momentum added to it, it accelerated downwards several storeys before hitting the group. It immediately broke, sending Vinyl flying forwards across the grass. She managed to land on her legs, but it was quite heavily, and she collapsed to the ground. “That…didn’t go as well as I hoped it would,” she groaned.
 
The sniper calmly walked over to Vinyl and aimed the crossbow at her head. “Any final words, mine queen?” the sniper spat.
 
“Oh, hell yeah!” said Vinyl, shakily getting to her hooves. “I totally called that you were the sniper and behind the assassination attempts, Minister Peace!”
 
Minister Peace looked slightly confused for a moment, before reasserting herself. Although Vinyl had full view of her face from her position, Peace nevertheless pulled her dark cloak around herself tighter. “I suppose that those dying words wouldst be as good as any,” she said. “With thine death, I will reclaim the political power that I lost when thou arrived in this time, and I-”
 
“Hang on a second, how do you know that Octavia and I are from a different time?” asked Vinyl. Her legs were sore and damaged, but by straining herself she was able to keep herself upright. “And what do you mean, ‘reclaim political power’?”
 
“Thou and thine hoofmaiden have made little attempt at hiding thine differing speech patterns, nor thine relationship,” sneered Peace. “To a pony such as I, such things are unthinkable, and thus thou must be from an alternate dimension.”
 
“Do you mean dimension, or timeline?” asked Vinyl, frowning. “Because a little while back I was saying that dimensions are-”
 
“And how canst thou not know of thine usurping of mine throne?” interrupted Peace. “I was the queen before thou arrived here, at which point I had the position taken from me. Didst thou not pay attention? Do thou not recall that I became a minister as a downgrade from mine previous position?”
 
“Er….maybe I wasn’t paying much attention during the first day or two when we arrived here?” said Vinyl awkwardly. “So what, your big plan is to shoot me and Octavia, then you automatically get the throne back? Seems to me your plan has a few flaws.”
 
“No doubt I will have to do some political manipulations in order to restore mineself to mine previous position,” said Minister Peace, “and I will have to find an alibi, but those problems should be easy enough to solve.”
 
“Umm… I was kinda talking about the other flaw. The big one,” said Vinyl. Minister Peace raised an eyebrow. “I’m still alive, you idiot.”
 
Her innate unicorn magic activating, Vinyl surrounded Minister Peace’s crossbow with a magical aura and twisted it ninety degrees sideways. At the same time, Peace had gone to fire the crossbow, resulting in her shooting herself with a bolt to the shoulder.
 
 “Argh!” she cried out. In her pain, she lost focus and dropped the magical aura she had been using to hold the crossbow up, causing it to drop to the ground. Exploiting this opportunity, Vinyl took a swift step forwards and punched Peace to the ground.
 
“That’s COBRA training for you, bitch,” she said, grinning. “Also, ouch,” she added, rubbing one hoof over the one she had punched Minister Peace with.
 

===============================

 
“Octavia!” called out Vinyl. She was back in the castle after some guards had taken away Minister Peace, and had just spotted Octavia, with some bandages wrapped around her, whilst looking for her. “Hey, Octavia!”
 
“Vinyl!” said Octavia, who had been heading in Vinyl’s direction. On account of their injuries, she couldn’t run to Vinyl, nor could Vinyl run to her, but nevertheless both ponies hobbled swiftly towards each other. “Good to see that you’re okay!”
 
“What, you thought a fall out of a third-storey window would stop me?” asked Vinyl, grinning.
 
“…Fall?” asked Octavia, confused.
 
“Um…never mind,” said Vinyl awkwardly. “Anyway, you’ll never guess what I found out! The minister behind the assassination attempts was –”
 
“Minister von Doom! I know!” said Octavia excitedly.
 
“What?” asked Vinyl, confused.
 
“I was heading to somepony who could help heal me, when Minister von Doom stepped out of a side door and attempted one of his trademark obviously telegraphed assassination attempts,” explained Octavia. “It was all very elaborate…some sort of swinging log trap. I don’t know why he thought that it would stop me. Anyway, I was able to avoid death by very cleverly stepping to the side, and then after a brief skirmish, I was able to overpower him and get him to confess being behind the assassination attempts!” Octavia smiled, looking quite pleased with herself. “I take it that the sniper was associated with the assassins who attacked us earlier?”
 
“…Not exactly,” said Vinyl. “It was Minister Peace, who told me that she was behind the assassination attempts. Or close enough to admitting it.”
 
“But if they both admitted it, then – ” Octavia hesitated, thinking it through. “Does this mean that we missed something? That somepony else was behind these two, manipulating them like –”
 
“I think I can explain everything,” interrupted a new voice. Vinyl and Octavia turned to face it.
 
“Random guard!” exclaimed Vinyl happily. “What are you doing here?”
 
“I’m inexplicably here to explain everything that’s happened at the last second,” said the guard. “We’ve finished interrogating the assassins who attacked you in thine bedroom, your majesty.”
 
“And?” asked Vinyl.
 
“They were hired by both Minister von Doom, whom thine hoofmaiden has helpfully already asked us to lock up in the dungeon, and Minister Peace,” explained the guard. “From what we learned, the plan was to murder the two of you, allowing Peace to return to her former position as our queen. From there, she would have the political power she craved returned.”
 
“Sounds like von Doom wasn’t that involved though, right?” asked Vinyl, shooting a side glance at Octavia. “It was mostly Minister Peace?”
 
“It appears that he was behind the funding of the assassins, and responsible for at least several of the assassination attempts on her majesty,” said the guard. “Apparently, once Minister Peace was in power, she was to subtly assist Minister von Doom in getting corpses and other…things…for his experimentation.”
 
“Crap, and I thought that he was past his necromancy stage in life,” said Vinyl, shaking her head in disappointment. To her side, Octavia was rolling her eyes. “But anyway, you managed to get that all from a few assassins? Damn, they’re terrible at their jobs.”
 
“Regardless, it seems that for now, thou and thine hoofmaiden are in no immediate danger,” said the guard.
 
“Even if we’re in no danger, I’m glad we now know all of that,” said Octavia, pleased.
 
“Yeah, it’s just like they’re always telling us at COBRA – ‘Knowing is half the battle,’” agreed Vinyl.
 
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone at COBRA say that,” said Octavia, frowning. “Isn’t it that other group that says that?”
 
“Is it? Oh, whatever.” Frowning as she thought it over, Vinyl added, “That whole debacle was nowhere near as political as I was promised. But on the other hoof, I guess you could say that the assassins are…all washed up!” said Vinyl, switching to a grin. A few moments passed, during which Octavia and the guard looked at each other in confusion.
 
“Vinyl, I’ve told you before…you can’t just make a terrible joke and expect everything to fade to black like in the movies,” said Octavia. “And what the hay sort of pun was that supposed to be? There wasn’t any water or, or…you know what I mean!”
 
“Some day it’ll work!” exclaimed Vinyl. “Some day, I’ll say something dramatic and the…scene?...will end! Just you wait!”
 
Octavia rolled her eyes. “Honestly, if it was up to me, I’d end the ‘scene’ after a much less dramatic or humorous line, just to be different.”



> Chapter Four: Time for a Drink
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Excited random exclamation!” exclaimed Vinyl excitedly.
 
“Serious reply,” replied Octavia seriously.
 
“Heh. I love you, Octavia,” said Vinyl. “And I think that I like the look of this time period we’ve ended up in! It’s all…sepia-y!”
 
The two ponies had just arrived in another time period after Vinyl had cast the time travel spell, nearly a week since the assassination attempts. From the looks of things, they had appeared in a small city with cobblestone roads. All around them, the ponies – who for the most part had failed to react to two ponies appearing out of nowhere in a flash of light – were wearing somewhat fancy clothes; suits and elaborate dresses and the like.
 
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but it certainly looks more modern than last time,” said Octavia, looking around appreciably. “When do you think this is?”
 
“Three o’clock in the afternoon,” said Vinyl, pointing to a nearby clock.
 
“…I meant which time period do you think this is?” Octavia asked, deadpan.
 
“I dunno,” said Vinyl. “Sometime fancy? When’s the fanciest time period that you can think of?”
 
Octavia shrugged. “I suppose it doesn’t matter either way. Luckily you weren’t drunk when you cast the spell this time, so we don’t have to stay here for as long – what shall we do to kill a few hours?”
 
“Go exploring, I guess?” Vinyl said. “I’m sure I sorta recognise this period, but I can’t quite put my hoof on when it is…Anyway, the way I see it, we keep exploring around the place until we find a bar, then settle down there until my magical energies are replenished!”
 
Octavia grimaced. “We spend several weeks in that Celestia-forsaken medieval period because you were silly enough to get drunk before casting a magic-intensive spell, and then your first instinct upon arriving in a new time period is to get drunk before casting a magic-intensive spell?”
 
Vinyl grinned in response. “I’m one of a kind, baby! Also, I’m never said I’d get drunk – I figure that while we’re in such a fancy period, we can have a nice drink and a meal  - just the two of us - while we’ve got the chance.”
 
“Honestly?” Octavia asked, her expression softening. Vinyl nodded enthusiastically. “That’s – that’s very thoughtful of you. I like this idea! We can go along the streets of this city until we find a nice restaurant –”
 
“Pub,” corrected Vinyl.
 
“…Well, I suppose I can’t win them all,” said Octavia, smiling. “Shall we, then?”
 
Walking down the streets, the two ponies soon discovered through signs that the city they were in was Canterlot, many years before they knew it. There were small fillies and colts playing baseball in the streets, many ponies were openly smoking, and the prices were much cheaper than what Vinyl and Octavia were used to – one sign advertised a three course meal for only two bits.
 
The biggest change, however, wasn’t the attitudes of ponies, the dress codes, or the prices. They were part of it, yes, but the whole thing was greater than the sum of its parts. The city simply…felt different. It wasn’t just the simpler architecture which led to it, it was the emotion expressed through that architecture, reflected by its people. And that emotion was apparent to Vinyl and Octavia after just a few minutes – bleakness. Hopelessness. The feeling that things hadn’t been going well for a while, and weren’t going to for a long time.
 
“The suits, the grey buildings, the prices…” Octavia was saying as the two ponies entered a bar they had found after nearly half an hour of exploring. “Vinyl, I think I’ve worked out when we are – it’s –”
 
“Hi there, my good stallion!” said Vinyl to the bartender, ignoring Octavia as she sat down. “Could we start off with two of your finest – and most alcoholic – beverages, and we’ll work out what we want to eat from there?”
 
“Applesauce!” said the bartender, a dark-coated Earth pony. “I look like a sap sellin’ hooch to you? This ain’t no gin mill, see?”
 
“Uhh…” mumbled Vinyl, not sure what to say.
 
“Now, youse two flappers gonna order summat proper, or what?” he asked.
 
“I was going to say, Vinyl,” said Octavia, “I think that we’re in the prohibition era.”
 
Vinyl’s head jerked up as she looked at Octavia. “You mean - ?”
 
“Yes, Vinyl – alcohol is currently illegal,” said Octavia seriously.
 
“You been livin’ in a cave the past three years?” the bartender asked. “Alcohol’s been illegal for years, and it ain’t like it’s gonna come back inna fashion, see?”
 
Vinyl stared at the bartender. Without looking away from him, she asked, “Octavia, we’re in my own personal hell. Can we please get out of here?”
 
“Um…sure, Vinyl,” said Octavia, shrugging apologetically to the bartender as she led Vinyl out of the bar. “Are you okay?”
 
“I can’t believe it!” said Vinyl, closing the door behind her somewhat harder than she would have normally. “They…they imprisoned the alcohol! They- how can they prohibit it?”
 
“Calm down, Vinyl, it’s alright,” said Octavia, putting a hoof around the other mare. “You and I know from history that prohibition only lasts a few more years, and that in the meantime criminals like the Marefia were making bootleg alcohol, so –”
 
“The Marefia! Of course!” said Vinyl.
 
“What?” asked Octavia. There were many ideas which may have just come into Vinyl’s head, and Octavia was not sure whether she wanted to hear any of them.
 
“We’ll go to the Marefia, and get some alcohol from them!” said Vinyl cheerfully. “Then we can have a nice drink, and a nice meal and a – you know what I mean?”
 
Octavia bit her lip, contemplating what to say to Vinyl. “Can we please not go spend time with hardened criminals?” was one of the first thoughts to come into her head, followed by, “Is getting some alcohol really that important to you?” Instead of either of these, she opted to begin with, “Uh-”
 
“I knew you’d see things my way!” said Vinyl enthusiastically. “Now, where do we find the Marefia?” She started looking around the streets, as if hoping to spot a sign pointing to the Marefia’s legitimate stallion’s business club.
 
“This is going to be one of those things where even if I adamantly refuse to assist you, you’re going to do it anyway, isn’t it?” asked Octavia, finally finding her voice.
 
“Well…” Vinyl looked a little nervous, but answered nevertheless. “How much do you want to? Because if you don’t want to, we don’t have to. I’m not an idiot; these are hardened criminals we’re talking about.”
 
Octavia thought for a moment. On one hoof, there was a very probable chance that they could be killed by the Marefia, or that in the million-to-one chance that everything went fine with the Marefia, the guards could catch them acquiring illegal alcohol and arrest them. On the other hoof, this was apparently important to Vinyl…
 
Octavia shrugged. “Eh, going with the logic that our future selves are still alive and kicking a good twenty-five years from now – well, not now, but you know what I mean – we should be fine,” she said.
 
Vinyl grinned. “We’re so going to get killed one of these days with thoughts like that, aren’t we?”
 
“Well, at least it will be a glorious death by the side of the mare I love,” said Octavia, matching Vinyl’s grin.
 
“Bitching!” said Vinyl enthusiastically.
 
“…So, how do we find the Marefia?” asked Octavia, a moment later as she realised that Vinyl didn’t have a plan.
 
“Well, we…hmm…” Vinyl frowned as she thought intensely.
 
“I suppose that as the Marefia are mixing alcohol, it’s possible that they might be located in a b-” Octavia began.
 
“I’ve got it!” interrupted Vinyl loudly and enthusiastically. “Marefia!”
 
“…Yes?” Octavia asked, after realising that Vinyl wasn’t going to reveal more of her thoughts.
 
“Marefia starts with an ‘M’, right?” Vinyl said. “What else starts with M?”
 
“Er-”
 
“You’re right, moon!” continued Vinyl. “And who raises the moon?”
 
“If you’re seriously going to suggest that the Marefia are on the moon, Vinyl, I have a lot of explaining to do to you,” said Octavia, deadpan.
 
“Luna, of course!” said Vinyl, completely ignoring Octavia. “Luna is Celestia’s sister…Celestia…Celes…tia! Tia rhymes with Marefia!” Looking excitedly at Octavia and not getting a reply, she added, “Don’t you see?”
 
“You’ve gone insane from lack of alcohol and are grasping at whatever straws you can in an attempt to find some more?” suggested Octavia.
 
“That too!” said Vinyl. “But it’s obvious from the name – the Marefia are secretly run by Princess Celestia and Princess Luna! That means they must be hidden in Canterlot Castle!”
 
“This is the part where you suggest we assault the castle and find the Marefia, isn’t it?” sighed Octavia.
 
“You know me so well!” said Vinyl in a sing-song voice. “So, you ready to go?”
 
“…Vinyl, I hate to break it to you, but I very much doubt that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna secretly run the Marefia,” said Octavia, her voice even and patient. “For a start, Luna’s still on the moon at this point in Equestria’s history.”
 
Vinyl’s eyes narrowed as the gears in her head spun, attempting to factor this into her theory. “….But that doesn’t mean that Celestia couldn’t be running them, right?”
 
“Between this, the Pony Tales campaign, and your plans in the last time period we visited, you certainly seem to have something against the Princesses,” said Octavia, ignoring Vinyl’s question. “Should I be concerned? Why do you have a grudge against them?”
 
“Because they’re prettier than me!” growled Vinyl, stomping a hoof onto the ground. “Now, are we going to destroy Canterlot Castle, or what?”
 
“I thought we were looking for the Marefia,” said Octavia, slightly perplexed.
 
“Oh yeah! Hey, do you think the guard outside that illegal gambling den would know where they are?” asked Vinyl, pointing a hoof. Across the road was what appeared to be an apartment building, with stairs headed down to the front entrance. At the top of the stairs stood a grey-coated Earth pony, casually smoking.
 
“What makes you think that that’s a gambling den?” asked Octavia, staring up to the top of it. “It looks like an apartment building to me.”
 
“Show me an apartment building that’s not a gambling den and I’ll show you a boring place to live!” said Vinyl. “Anyway, it won’t hurt to ask.” She started to cross the road, but was held back by a hoof from Octavia.
 
“Wait. What are we going to say to them?” Octavia asked. “Assuming that your hunch is right, and this is a building run by the Marefia, I doubt they’ll allow anypony to just join them willy-nilly.”
 
Vinyl gave a small nod in agreement as she put a hoof to her chin, thinking. “If you were a guard for an illegal criminal organisation, fearful that undercover guards could raid your place any day, what would a stranger say to you that would lead to you trusting them enough to enter the building?” she asked.
 
Octavia shrugged. “‘Nyeh, now look here, fella. I gots a message to take to the boss, so you’d better let me in, see?’” she said, putting on a mock accent.
 
“Better than anything I can think of,” said Vinyl, trotting across the street without waiting for Octavia.
 
“Wait, Vinyl!” called Octavia as she hurriedly ran after Vinyl. “I was only –”
 
“Nyeh, now look here, fella,” said Vinyl to the guard outside the building, “I gots a message to take to the boss, so you’d better let me in, see?” Giving Vinyl a funny look, the guard’s sight moved over to Octavia, who had just caught up to Vinyl. “Oh, and Octavia, too!” said Vinyl, the accent she had temporarily adopted immediately dropped. “She’s totally with me!”
 
“How come I ain’t seen youse two before?” asked the guard, slowly and dully.
 
“Octavia! He’s seeing through our foolproof plan!” gasped Vinyl loudly.
 
“On the plus side, your hunch that this building is run by the Marefia turned out to be correct,” murmured Octavia quietly to Vinyl. To the guard, she said, “We’re both…new?”
 
“To the family!” added Vinyl. “The Marefia has families, right?”
 
“Yes! No, wait, we’re new to a different family!” added Octavia. “And we, um-”
 
“Need to talk to yours!” said Vinyl. “About Marefia…business?”
 
The guard took a long, slow look at Vinyl and Octavia, both of whom were grinning cheerfully in a very bad attempt to look casual. Taking his time, he sucked on his cigarette, embracing the smoke flowing into his lungs. As he breathed it out, he took another long, slow look at Vinyl and Octavia.
 
“Marefia business?” he asked, his voice low and quiet.
 
Vinyl and Octavia looked at each other, unsure what to say. “Marefia business…suits?” Vinyl suggested.
 
“Is that something we smuggle?” Octavia asked hesitantly.
 
“…Yes?” Vinyl asked. She and Octavia looked back at the guard, who was still tiredly examining the two with weary eyes.
 
The guard sighed. He threw his cigarette butt to the ground, and stomped it into the asphalt. “Are you two ponies stool pigeons?”
 
“I can confirm that I’ve never been a bird in my life!” Vinyl replied obliviously. “Although my Pony Tales character had a pair of wings to fly – does that count against me?”
 
The guard gave a slow, sluggish shrug. “Head down the stairs. You ponies try a double cross, the big six breaks your kneecaps and throws you in the river, see?”
 
“Huzzah!” exclaimed Vinyl as she trotted down the stairs. “We’re in! Wait, the big six what?” Ready to open the door, Octavia grabbed her hoof and held her back.
 
“So, what do we do when the Marefia find out that we’re not here to discuss smuggled business suits?” she asked. “Please don’t tell me you’re planning to run off with the first bottle of alcohol you spot.”
 
“Nah, I figure that we’ll just go in there, tell them that we want to buy some booze, then mosey on out of there,” Vinyl said. “It’s not like that guard guy told anypony what we were here for, and they’re not going to turn down a profit.”
 
“When you put it like that, I have no objections,” said Octavia. She grinned. “’Mosey’ on out of there?”
 
“I think I’m getting the hang of the slang of this time, see?” said Vinyl, putting on an accent and grinning at Octavia.
 
Laughing at her marefriend, Octavia pushed down the handle and opened the door revealing the interior of the building. It was a wretched hive of scum and villainy. The air was heavy with smoke from all of the cigarettes and cigars being smoked, and as Vinyl had predicted, there was illegal gambling going on – poker, blackjack, baccarat, and every other card game which could make the Marefia a profit. Beneath all of the dirt – both physical and metaphorical – was what had once, briefly, been a nicely carpeted lobby of an apartment building, before the Marefia had bought it out for their activities.
 
As Vinyl and Octavia stepped inside, coughing slightly from the smoke, a white-coated unicorn in a smart business suit approached them. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he greeted them in a smooth voice. “Are you here for business, or…” His briefly paused as he cast an eye over their bodies. “…pleasure?”
 
“Pleasure!” said Vinyl enthusiastically. Octavia smacked her on the back of the head.
 
“We’re here for business, actually,” she said to the stallion.
 
“We are?” Vinyl asked. “We are! Take us to your leader! No, wait, your booze!”
 
The stallion smirked in apparent humour. “If it is alcohol you wish to purchase, I need only take you to the pony in charge of it. Please follow me.” Swerving in-between gamblers, drunk, and high ponies, the three ponies weaved their way through the crowd to a staircase. Ascending it, Vinyl and Octavia were led to an inconspicuous-looking door a few storeys up.  Were the building owned by another pony, it would probably lead to a perfectly normal apartment.
 
“Just go through?” Octavia asked, putting a hoof on the handle in anticipation. The suited unicorn nodded. Pushing the handle, Octavia opened the door.
 
Inside the apartment a crude office had been set up. A large Earth pony, wearing a suit similar to that of the unicorn, was sitting at a desk, filling out what appeared to be paperwork. “Nyeh, whaddya want?” he asked, without looking up. In his mouth was a cigar which he chomped as he spoke.
 
“May we take a seat?” Octavia asked, pulling a chair forwards from in front of the desk. Vinyl followed suit.
 
“Be my guest, but get ready to twenty-three skidoo if there’s any funny business, see?” the apparent boss said. Looking up as Vinyl and Octavia sat down, he asked, “So, what brings two dames like you into my office? It ain’t many ponies what risk dealing with the Marefia these days.” His voice had a distinct Manehattan accent to it.
 
“It’s quite simple, really,” began Octavia, before noticing Vinyl’s impatient look. She nodded, allowing her to explain it.
 
“We need booze! And lots of it!” Vinyl said cheerfully.
 
“Giggle water, huh?” the pony asked. “You got bits, then you got a deal, but first of all, lemme tell you the rules for when you deal with Big Cheese’s family.” Vinyl and Octavia stayed silent, waiting for him to continue. “First rule is, there ain’t no rules in this family.”
 
“Oh, so we-” began Octavia before Big Cheese interrupted her.
 
“Second rule: always follow the rules,” continued Big Cheese, apparently not hearing Octavia. She started to raise a hoof, as though to ask a question, hesitantly. “And the third rule is the most important of all,” Big Cheese said. “Never talk about the Marefia.”
 
“…So, basically we’re not allowed to say that we made a deal with the Marefia for bootleg liquor?” Octavia asked after waiting to see what else Big Cheese would say. “That’s a simple enough rule to follow.”
 
“Baloney! Did you not just hear what I said?” Big Cheese growled. “There ain’t no rules in this family!”
 
Octavia gave Vinyl a confused glance. “Er…” she began.
 
Vinyl cleared her throat. “So, um, anyway, what sort of alcohol have you got to offer us?” she asked.
 
“Right to business,” said Big Cheese, nodding in approval. “I like that in a pony.” Reaching behind the desk for something, he drew out a bottle and placed it on the table. “Bottle of the finest bootleg scotch a pony could ask for – eighty bits.” He reached down and withdrew another bottle, also placing it on the table. “Whiskey’s yer poison? It ain’t no skin off my nose. Sixty bits.” A third bottle was placed on the table. “Vodka, like what them ponies up north drink? One hundred  bits.” Leaning back in his chair, he added, “Now I tell you, these are the best prices for bootleg you can get in Canterlot, or my name ain’t Big Cheese.”
 
Octavia gestured to Vinyl. “Thoughts? I don’t mind what you choose; it’s your pick.”
 
Vinyl had been frowning as the bottles were placed on the table, apparently dissatisfied with the prices, but she seemed smart enough to know not to pick a fight with the Marefia. “I wouldn’t mind some scotch, to be honest,” she said, scratching her chin thoughtfully. “How many bits do you have, Octavia?”
 
Octavia went to reach for her saddlebags to check, before recalling that she hadn’t brought any with her. “I – um, I don’t think my possessions came with me when we- you know.”
 
“…Ah, crap,” said Vinyl, giving Octavia an awkward look before facing back to Big Cheese. The large, brown-coated pony had been leaning back casually in his chair, completely enthralled with the power he had in the office. As he stared at them, though, he dropped the chair to all four legs with a BANG! Simultaneously, his expression, which had previously been a broad smile, slowly transformed into an ugly scowl.
 
“You two dames telling me you ain’t got no bits?” he growled. “What is this, a joke?”
 
“Er- it’s a long story,” stuttered Octavia, bracing herself to leap out of the chair and run out the office, Vinyl hopefully in tow. Looking behind her, she saw that somepony had closed the office door after she and Vinyl had entered – probably to prevent ponies like her from doing exactly what she was planning to do.
 
“Hey, no need to get angry,” said Vinyl, holding up two innocent hooves. “We may have no bits, sure, but it’s not like we’ve bought anything yet.”
 
As Vinyl spoke, Big Cheese’s muscles relaxed, and when he spoke, his voice was softer again. “Y-yeah, you got a point there, doll,” he said. Looking away from Vinyl and Octavia, he muttered something indistinct to himself, apparently thinking something through. Vinyl and Octavia looked to each other and shrugged, unsure whether they should leave or not.
 
“Alright, I think I gots an idea,” said Big Cheese a few moments later, addressing Vinyl and Octavia. “You two ponies want some hooch? I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
 
“I refuse!” blurted out Vinyl. There was silence in the room. Then…
 
“Heh,” said Big Cheese, apparently amused, “you got a good sense of humour. I like that. Now, here’s my idea…”
 

===============================


 

“Huzzah! We’re working for the Marefia!” exclaimed Vinyl as she and Octavia exited the apartment building through a back door. A few hours had passed, and it was now early evening. In front of her was a jack she was balancing with her telekinesis, which in turn held a large barrel upon it.
 
“Not so loudly, Vinyl!” said Octavia, ducking her head as though somepony was going to leap out of an alley and take a photo of her. “What if there are guards around?”
 
“Then we beat them up!” said Vinyl. “But in all seriousness, according to the route that Big Cheese gave us, there shouldn’t be guards heading down this street for at least another half hour, so we should be good.”
 
“Good for what? Entering the criminal underworld?” Octavia asked, pushing the jack with a hoof down the street. For her part, Vinyl used her telekinesis to balance the barrel, ensuring that it wouldn’t suddenly misbalance and fall to the ground, spilling the wine within it to the ground.
 
“Pfft. Whatever, Octavia,” said Vinyl, waving a hoof absentmindedly. “Smuggling bootleg alcohol is a victimless crime, and Big Cheese said that once we get this over to their warehouse, we can take any two bottles we want!”
 
“I suppose you’re right,” said Octavia, sighing slightly. “You realise that you probably could cast the time travel spell by now though, surely?”
 
“We’ll wait ‘til we get the booze, then do it!” said Vinyl excitedly, nearly tipping the barrel over herself in her enthusiasm. “That’s what us real hardened criminals do, nyeh! Take the booze and run!”
 
“Does that count as running if you’re escaping to a different time?” Octavia asked. “If you’re running, you’re displacing yourself in space, whereas time travel is displacing yourself in time.”
 
Vinyl blinked. “Do you ever do that thing where somepony’s talking, and rather than listening to them, you just sorta zone out and stare at their lips and think about making out with them? Because I was totally doing that just then. What were you saying?”
 
Octavia grinned. “I was saying that we’d better rent out a hotel before we drink the alcohol, because we’re going to need to some privacy when we’re done!”
 
“Yeah!” said Vinyl. “With what money?”
 
“You just had to ruin it, didn’t you?” asked Octavia, rolling her eyes. Nevertheless, a large smile was on her face as she did so. It was quickly wiped off her face though, as she looked down the street to see a patrolling group of guards heading towards her and Vinyl.
 
“There’s a group of guards ahead, about to walk right into us,” said Octavia quietly to Vinyl. “What shall we do?” Even as she spoke, she was turning the jack so that she could move the barrel of wine someplace else.
 
Vinyl looked around them. The street was a fairly wide cobblestone one, with dull, grey buildings every few spaces. The guards were headed straight for her and Octavia, and there was nowhere to hide. “Just let go of the jack,” said Vinyl. “Or, I dunno, push it into the shadows, leave it there, then  we can head off.”
 
“Then the guards will find it!” hissed Octavia. She glanced up to see where the guards were. They still apparently hadn’t noticed Vinyl and Octavia, being busy talking amongst themselves, but they would soon. “The Marefia will kill us – literally – if the guards find a barrel of their alcohol and trace it back to them thanks to us.”
 
“We could fight the Marefia?” suggested Vinyl awkwardly. Upon seeing Octavia’s look, she hastily added, “Or the guards? If we could just -”
 
“Well, well, well!” said the apparent head of the guard patrol, interrupting Vinyl as he and his squad approached the two mares. He had a bushy brown moustache, and was wielding a spear. “What’s all this then?”
 
“J-just two mares, out for an evening stroll,” stuttered Octavia hastily.
 
“Without any pants!” added Vinyl helpfully. As she spoke, Octavia quickly moved around the front of the jack. Vinyl had been standing in front of the barrel whilst she was talking, and the sun was down, so maybe if the guards hadn’t been paying attention, the barrel hadn’t been –
 
“An evening stroll, eh?” asked the guard, raising his eyebrows. “Just two mares, and their barrel?” he asked, eyeing the very visible container.
 
“…Yes?” Vinyl asked. “We, uh-”
 
“What’s in that barrel then?” asked another guard. The guard patrol – four guards in total, including the captain – had started to disperse and surround Vinyl, Octavia, and the jack with the barrel on it. The guard who had asked the question poked the barrel with a hoof, as though he could detect its contents from the noise it made.
 
“The barrel?” asked Octavia, eyeing the guards carefully. Of them, most were armed with spears or swords, with a few having small bows for flexibility. “It’s full of –”
 
“Monkeys!” said Vinyl, at the exact same time that Octavia said-
 
“Fun!” Both looked at each other and then to the guard captain. “Um, that is to say, the monkeys are fun,” Octavia hastily added, “so, um, yes. That’s what the barrel contains.”
 
The guards looked at one another. “Alright then, I don’t suppose you’d object to opening up this barrel of monkeys –”
 
“Fun,” corrected another guard.
 
“- for us?” continued the guard who had poked the barrel. Although he had a flamboyant pink mane, it didn’t stop him from succeeding in intimidating Vinyl and Octavia. “Unless you have paperwork for this barrel, we’re supposed to check all barrels for smuggled alcohol.”
 
“Would you believe me if I said that they are Appleloosan Fighting Monkeys, and that they’re not supposed to be let out of the barrel until we’ve taken them to their trainer?” Vinyl asked. “The sedatives we put on them-”
 
One of the guards had procured a crowbar. “Get out of the way,” he growled. Hesitating for a moment, Vinyl took a step to the side.
 
Squeezing the crowbar into the top of the barrel, the guard pried it open. As Vinyl and Octavia had known, it was filled nearly to the brim with bootleg wine, the strong scent of which filled the air almost immediately.
 
“ …It’s full of Appleloosan Fighting Monkeys, is it?” asked the guard captain, somehow making the single step he took towards the mares ominous.
 
“Um…”  began Octavia, looking to Vinyl for ideas. Luckily, Vinyl had one.
 
“GASP!”  she shouted loudly, looking into the barrel. “Octavia, of all the contrived coincidences to happen to us! It appears that those silly ponies at the warehouse mixed up our barrel of monkeys with that of a barrel of presumably legally-produced wine, which most assuredly should not be investigated!” She slapped a hoof to her cheek. “How could this happen to us?”
 
Looking to the guards, Octavia flashed the biggest grin she could muster. They were not amused. “…That didn’t work, did it?” she asked after a few seconds of being scowled at.
 
“We will be confiscating this barrel from you, and taking the two of you into custody,” said the captain. “We will be questioning the two of you to find out where this barrel came from, and you will likely be taken to prison once all the charges have been found. Do you have any questions?”  Around Vinyl and Octavia, the guards had taken out their weapons and were pointing them at the duo.
 
“Prison?” asked Octavia, smirking.
 
“Like that’s ever stopped us!”  said Vinyl. To Octavia, she said, “I did try to solve this without violence. You saw!”
 
“I know, and I appreciate it very much,” said Octavia, smiling warmly at Vinyl. “Now, let’s kick their flanks!”
 
Dropping to the ground and rolling forwards, Octavia was able to avoid the spear jab that was aimed at her, and delivered an uppercut to the guard in front on her. She kicked off from the ground and launching herself upwards simultaneously, adding further force to her punch. Another guard shot a bolt from his crossbow at Octavia, but it missed her and hit something wooden behind her.
 
For her part, Vinyl was standing in the same spot and yawning. “C’mon, guys,” she said sleepily, “if you’re going to try and stop us, try and stop us.”
 
“Challenge accepted,” said the captain of the guard. To the only guard that wasn’t facing Octavia, he ordered, “You – flank her!”
 
“Wait, that’s what flanking means?” asked Vinyl as the guard approached her from the side whilst she focused on the captain. “No wonder Octavia always laughs when I tell her I’m going to flank her! I thought it meant-”
 
“Perhaps you should concentrate on the fight, Vinyl?” suggested Octavia, on the other side of the barrel. She braced herself on her front hooves, allowing her to swing her back legs forwards in an arc and knock over the guard in front of her. Behind her, the first guard she had given an uppercut was picking himself up, ready to attack her again.
 
“Oh yeah!” said Vinyl. Her horn glowed, and she yanked the two spears being pointed at her out of their owners’ grasps, before snapping them in half. “Right, this is probably supposed to be tense.” A moment later, she had surrounded the head of the guard flanking her with her telekinetic field, and slammed it heavily to the ground, knocking him out.
 
Stunned for a moment, the guard captain withdrew a short sword from a sheath, and aimed it at Vinyl. “This is your final chance to turn yourself in, or I will respond with force,” he said. “Do you surrender now and inform us as to where you acquired the barrel, or would you rather some stab wounds beforehoof?”
 
“How about…Option C: None of the above?!” Vinyl suggested. “Octavia! Activate maneuver 12-D!” she called.
 
“What the bloody hell does that mean?!” Octavia replied angrily. She was grappling with a guard, trying to gain the upper hoof on him. Her opponent was an Earth pony like her, and so his strength had to, at the very least, match hers.
 
“…Give her a minute?” Vinyl suggested to the guard captain, her horn glowing slightly. He shook his head dismissively, scoffing as he did so.
 
He drew his sword back in an arc, ready to strike the unicorn. “Don’t say I didn’t-”
 
SMASH! Without looking at it, Vinyl had surrounded the barrel of wine with her telekinetic field, and thrown it at the guard captain. It connected with him head-on, knocking him over and robbing him of consciousness. The force was large enough to completely destroy the barrel, drenching the captain in wine.
 
“That was fun!”  said Vinyl enthusiastically to Octavia, who had only just managed to defeat her opponents, and was panting heavily. “Let’s do it again!”
 
“Can we not?” Octavia asked. “These guards won’t stay unconscious for that long. We should try and get the barrel to – oh hell, Vinyl, what happened to the barrel?”
 
“I used it as part of maneuver 12-D,” Vinyl said cheerfully. Octavia gave her a look. “You know, maneuver 12-D? Where I shout out to you to confuse the opponent, then use telekinesis to hit my opponent with the nearest heavy object?”
 
“Where the hell do you get all of this, Vinyl?” asked Octavia. “I wasn’t aware that we had one maneuver, let alone twelve.”
 
“COBRA Trooper handbook,” said Vinyl simply. “Am I the only pony who read it?”
 
“You must be,” said Octavia absentmindedly.  “But regardless, what are we going to do about the barrel of wine being destroyed?”
 
“Blame it on the innocent guards who were doing their job to enforce a stupid law?” Vinyl suggested. “We’ve got to tell the Marefia anyway, and they won’t be able to prove that it wasn’t them.”
 
Octavia grimaced. “I suppose that’s better than the alternative,” she said.  “I doubt that we’ll get the free alcohol we were promised, but it’s worth a try.”
 
Grabbing the empty jack, the two ponies headed down the path that had been mapped out for them by the Marefia, swift to leave the scene of the crime. Along the way, they passed a few more guard patrols, although without a suspicious barrel this time, they were greeted with a simple nod and a wave.
 
After around thirty minutes of walking, Vinyl and Octavia had arrived at the warehouse they were instructed to go to. It was fairly nondescript, sitting by several other warehouses which were presumably used by legal enterprises.
 
“It’s a bit sad, isn’t it?” asked Vinyl. “All the hideouts in Canterlot to choose from, and Big Cheese and his Marefia family go with the abandoned warehouse cliché.”
 
“Does it count as an abandoned warehouse if ponies are using it for a smuggling operation?” asked Octavia as she pushed the jack towards the side of the warehouse. “If it’s got ponies in it, it’s not abandoned, is it?”
 
“Hey, good point!”  Vinyl agreed. “But the city records would have it as abandoned, yes?”
 
“So whether it’s abandoned or not depends upon what the city records say? That’s just asking for a misnomer,” Octavia said as she walked down the side of the warehouse, Vinyl in tow.
 
“Hey, I don’t decide on the classifications,” said Vinyl, shrugging. “If I was, I’d call an abandoned warehouse something like…a fun-filled building of probable use by lazy writers for the climax of a story!”
 
“See, that right there is why you aren’t the pony who decides on classifications,” said Octavia. The two ponies had reached a small door, which Octavia knocked on.
 
A slit in the door was opened. “Password?” a voice asked.
 
“Of course we didn’t get the barrel destroyed!” exclaimed Vinyl.
 
“Vinyl!” Octavia hissed. “What are you-”
 
“Accepted. Come inside, guys,” said the voice on the other side of the door.
 
“What?” Vinyl asked Octavia as she entered the building, shrugging. “I didn’t choose it!”
 
“I’m more perplexed as to why I didn’t know the password myself,” said Octavia nonchalantly.
 
The two ponies entered into a large room, nodding at the door guard as they passed him. The room was full of dozens – no, hundreds – of barrels of assorted alcohol, all discretely moved to the warehouse from different Marefia buildings across the city. Although Big Cheese hadn’t told them any more than that, Vinyl and Octavia knew from history lessons – well, Octavia knew from history lessons – that the Marefia smuggled out the barrels in crates to whichever buildings or people requested them. Most of the ponies in the room were carefully putting the barrels into large crates at the moment, but Vinyl and Octavia headed for the one pony who was instead supervising the entire operation.
 
“We have good news and bad news!” said Vinyl, perhaps a little happier than she should have.
 
“And you critique others for clichés,” muttered Octavia.
 
Big Cheese gave Vinyl and Octavia a look-over, noticing that they were standing next to an empty jack, and looked slightly beaten up. “Is it that we’re going to murder you for incompetence, and that you failed to distract the guards respectively?” He was chewing on a cigar, but removed it and exhaled some smoke before continuing. “Because we are way ahead of you dames.”
 
Octavia gave Vinyl a bit of a nervous look before turning back to Big Cheese. “We can explain!” she said, her voice wobbling slightly. “We were following the route you planned for us, and then we – wait, what do you mean we didn’t distract the guards?”
 
Something clicked in Vinyl’s brain. “…We weren’t meant to deliver booze at all, were we?” she asked. “You gave us that route so that we could-”
 
“Distract the guards!” Octavia finished, seeing the same thing that Vinyl had. “And then I suppose you had other groups make actual deliveries here?”
 
Big Cheese blew out some more smoke. “I gotsta admit, I was hoping you ponies’d surrender, let the guard take of you, see? A barrel of wine like the one youse two were transporting? It’d get every guard in the city trying to question you, and it’d make the streets easier for my boys to move around for a night.”
 
Vinyl and Octavia had been slowly backing away during Big Cheese’s speech, but bumped into some Marefia enforcers. Gulping, they tried to move away, but the enforcers each grabbed a mare in a stranglehold. “So, anyway, the fight we got into would be enough to distract the guards, yes?” Vinyl asked. “Lots of guards will be investigating what happened, so we should be free to grab our booze and leave, right?”
 
Big Cheese snorted. “Boys, take ‘em away. We’re taking a trip to The Vat.”
 

 ===============================

 
Ten minutes later, Vinyl and Octavia found themselves dangling over a large vat full of an unknown, clear liquid. They were tied up tightly by ropes, with their backs to each other. Every few seconds, a brainless Marefia mook would wind a crank slightly, and the pulley system supporting them would lower them down slightly closer to the vat.
 
“It’s occurred to me that I could just take you two out behind the warehouse, put a bolt in both your heads, then throw you in the nearest river,” said Big Cheese, watching from the side of the vat. “But you know what? I’ll admit it. This is more fun. I like watching ponies go into The Vat.”
 
“W-what’s in there?”  asked Octavia. Her every instinct was telling her to struggle – to make herself more comfortable, if nothing else – but she knew that if she somehow managed to break the ropes binding her and Vinyl, they’d only die faster. Whatever was in the vat couldn’t be pleasant.
 
“When me and the boys first got into the bootleg business, you would not believe how hard it was,” Big Cheese said, apparently not hearing Octavia. “You gotta understand – the demand for alcohol’s crazy here! So after a few weeks of making alcohol by hoof and not getting anywhere, me an’ the boys had an idea.”
 
He had been absentmindedly staring into the vat as he spoke, but now he looked up to Vinyl and Octavia. “What if we magically created alcohol? It’d be easy; we’d just need to get the right ingredients then use alchemical spells to convert them to whatever our clients asked for. Doesn’t taste as good as the real thing, but when you’re buying bootleg, you don’t expect top quality, you take what you get, see?”
 
Big Cheese dropped his cigar to the ground and stomped on it absentmindedly. Octavia struggled, for appearance’s sake if nothing else. “The problem is the spell we ended up using is great for booze, but it produces all kinda of crazy toxins and acids as a side effect. And, well…”  He gestured to the vat. “We can’t just dump them somewhere – somepony’ll notice that the environment’s dying, and trace it back to us eventually. So we came up with The Vat.”
 
“So…we’re being dipped into toxins created as a side effect of producing alcohol?” asked Octavia, struggling to think of a way out of the situation.
 
“Murdered thanks to alcohol!” bemoaned Vinyl. “This time period really is ironic hell!”
 
“Go ahead and struggle. Do whatever you think will work. We’ve worked out all the angles, and there ain’t no way out of it, see?” said Big Cheese.
 
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Octavia had to admit that he was right. Neither she nor Vinyl could fly, Vinyl’s telekinesis couldn’t support them both, and even if they got out of the ropes and somehow didn’t fall into The Vat, there was still a warehouse full of Marefia goons between them and the exit.
 
“ …Any ideas, Vinyl?” asked Octavia.
 
“I think I’ve got it, Octavia!” said Vinyl excitedly. “Did you pick up one of the guards’ swords after we stopped them?”
 
“No.”
 
“Because I was thinking, if I could swing a sword at the exact right angle, it might bounce off your neck and –”
 
“Vinyl, I will pay you so much money not to do that,” said Octavia. She looked down into The Vat. The liquid didn’t look deadly in the slightest – just clear, like water. Typical. “Vinyl…I think that this really is it,” said Octavia, her voice quavering as she looked into The Vat.
 
“End of the line?” asked Vinyl solemnly. She felt Octavia’s head nodding in confirmation. “…Well, at least this is a glorious death by the side of the mare I love,” said Vinyl.
 
She closed her eyes and waited for the end to come.
 
THE END.
> Chapter Five: Overtime
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Wow!” exclaimed Vinyl Scratch. “I can’t believe how unbelievable the way we got out of that death-trap was!”
 
“Yes, it certainly was a fine escape,” said Octavia, agreeing warmly. “A very ingenious plan of ours, to do that particular thing which led to us escaping not only the ropes and The Vat, but also the Marefia!”
 
“Why thank you, beautiful mare,” said Vinyl, grinning. “I still can’t believe how simple what I had to do was!”
 
“You can’t?” Octavia asked, frowning slightly. “Here, let me go over it for you again…”
 

===============================

 
So. This is it. The big finish. The end of all things. The final game.

It was funny. I knew when I got into this business that it was a nasty one – there’d be roughing ponies up at times, and trouble would come knocking at my door whether I wanted it or not. But could I honestly say I expected to go out this way? With the Marefia throwing me into a vat of toxins, to prevent the truth of “The Bootleg Alcohol” case spilling out onto the streets? Of course not. If it was up to me, it would just be me and a –
 
“Vinyl!” interrupted Octavia, her back still tied to Vinyl’s. “Stop your silly noir detective narration! I’ve had an idea!”
 
“How did you know I was narrating? That was all in my head.” Vinyl wished she could turn her head to look Octavia in the eyes as she spoke to her – Octavia had such beautiful eyes – but as it was, the best she could do was wriggle vaguely in Octavia’s direction.
 
“How long has it been since you cast the time travel spell?” asked Octavia, ignoring Vinyl’s question.
 
Vinyl thought for a moment. Then another one. Finding excuses not to look at the ominous vat of toxins and impending doom wasn’t exactly hard. “Well, what, we arrived in Canterlot at around three-ish, right? And by now it’d be…ten? Eleven-ish? Hang on a second, that’d mean -”
 
“- you should be able to cast the spell once more!” Octavia finished. “It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
 
“Between ‘staying in the nice vat full of deadly poison’ and ‘not staying in the nice vat full of deadly poison’, I definitely choose the latter, yes,” agreed Vinyl. Her horn started to glow, magical energies gathering within it. She had successfully cast the spell four times already, and by now she was used to both the energy requirements of it and the particular feel of the spell.
 
“Hey, boss!” said one of the Marefia mooks, far down below on the warehouse floor. “Looks like the unicorn’s trying something! Should we do something about it?” He lifted his crossbow up slightly to emphasise his point.
 
“Of course, nyeh,” said Big Cheese. “Increase the speed they’re being lowered at! There’s no way they’ll be able to do whatever they’re planning!”
 
The Marefia grunt frowned. He opened his mouth to issue the command – rather silly, that he literally was just going to call out and repeat what Big Cheese had said, rather than Big Cheese himself simply giving the order – then closed it. “I – why don’t you just shoot them?” he suggested.
 
“What?” Big Cheese asked, stunned.
 
“You know, what if we just – you know, ignored the elaborate murder method? Just aimed our crossbows at them and shot?” the Marefia member continued.  “Sure, it’s not as fancy or dramatic as lowering them into The Vat, but it’s efficient, see?”
 
“…You’re a genius,” said Big Cheese, the simplicity of the suggestion dawning upon his face. “Alright, everyone, this is gonna be how it goes down, see? Aim your crossbows at the mares, and whoever takes them down gets a bonus of five hundred big ones!”
 
With that, the warehouse was filled with bolts, flying through the air in an attempt to hit their targets. Octavia flinched whenever a bolt whizzed past her, expecting to feel the solid punch of a bolt hitting her once more. She hadn’t liked it the last time that had happened, and didn’t want a repeat performance of it.
 
“ETA on the spell, Vinyl?” asked Octavia, tensing as a bolt nipped her ear. “They are shooting bolts at us, you know.”
 
“Try to look on the bright side,” grunted Vinyl, focusing most of her attention and magical energies on the spell. Her horn was glowing fairly brightly by now – hopefully it wouldn’t be long until she cast the spell and they escaped. “If they hit us, we get an extra bolt in our inventory.”
 
“In addition to internal bleeding and severe shock, possibly followed shortly afterwards by imminent death,” added Octavia bitterly.
 
“See? I knew you could do it!” said Vinyl. A moment later, she released the pent-up magic stored in her horn. As with the previous times, the energies of the spell hacked a rip into space-time, just the way Vinyl had commanded them to. The portal appeared below Vinyl and Octavia, and thanks to the lowering rope, they passed through it – and through time – only moments later.
 
“Wow!” exclaimed Vinyl Scratch, not even bothering to look to see when she and Octavia were once they had travelled through the portal. “I can’t believe how unbelievable the way we got out of that death-trap was!”
 

===============================

 
“And then I said-” Octavia began.
 
“I don’t care what you said, because there’s no way it’s as important as what I’m about to say: Shotgun!” interrupted Vinyl excitedly.
 
“…What’s a shotgun?” asked Octavia, slightly confused.
 
“I dunno,” admitted Vinyl, shrugging slightly. “But it’s what you say when you want to go next to the driver of a cart, and I mean, look – we’re on a train!”
 
Octavia had been so caught up in recalling and recapping the past few minutes that she hadn’t even noticed, but she and Vinyl had landed neatly in two train seats. The carriage they were in seemed moderately packed with other ponies, whose attire suggested that Vinyl and Octavia had landed in a time period approximately one or two hundred years before their own. Outside the window, the train was passing by a mostly featureless desert, the sun beating down heavily upon the sand.
 
“…Wait, you’re saying that you want to go sit by the train driver?” Octavia asked, a moment after processing everything. For now, everything seemed calm – certainly more calm than five minutes ago, relatively speaking – and so she was starting to relax.
 
“It’s a train, Octavia!” Vinyl said excitedly. “We never get to go on trains! How cool would the driver’s carriage be? I bet it’s got levers, and buttons, and, and, switches for when the train needs to expl-”
 
“We can go on trains whenever we want back in our own time, Vinyl,” pointed out Octavia.
 
“No we can’t! We never go on trains in the course of our wacky adventures!” Vinyl complained. By this point, she had moved closer to the window, and was looking out of it excitedly, as though the train’s driver would appear in the reflection and invite her to his carriage.
 
“We took a train to and from the Amarezon Jungle,” Octavia said bluntly.
 
“The what now?” Vinyl asked, turning from the window to look at Octavia.
 
“The Amarezon Jungle.” Octavia was met with a blank stare. “Where we first met?”
 
“…Trains are fun!” said Vinyl, excitedly going back to the window after a moment of silence.
 
“Of course they are, Vinyl; of course they are,” said Octavia, used to this behaviour by now. For a few moments, the two mares silently stared out of the window, Octavia looking from afar over Vinyl’s shoulder. “So, when do you think we are? And where, for that matter?” Octavia asked, quickly bored from having seen several million grains of sand too many.
 
Vinyl shrugged, turning away from the window once more. “We’re obviously passing through a desert, so I’d say we’re somewhere in the south of Equestria. It’s possible that we’re in another country or even continent I’m not so familiar with, but the spell hasn’t taken us that far – space-wise – with any of the other castings of it, and the amount of ponies in this carriage suggest that we’re still in Equestria.”
 
“I concur,” said Octavia, seeing no immediate flaw in Vinyl’s logic. “What cities are there to the south of Equestria? The only one I can think of from the top of my head is Appleloosa.”
 
Vinyl’s eyes suddenly seemed to sparkle. “Oh, Celestia,” sighed Octavia, “what have I said this time?”
 
“Appleloosa…?” Vinyl said, her voice in awe. “If we’re headed there – or from there, whatever – then we might be in…the Wild West!”
 
“Wild South,” corrected Octavia.
 
“Who knows what sort of cool adventure we’ll have in this time!” said Vinyl, still sounding a bit breathless. “We might end up heading down a mine, or trapped in a ghost town, or…what’s another cliché from this era?”
 
Before Octavia could answer, there was a burst of static from somewhere above Vinyl and Octavia. Looking up to see an antiquated speaker, a voice came out from it, crackly and loudly.
 
“A-attention to all passengers aboard the train: we regret to inform you that we need to request that all of you give up any valuables you currently have,” the speaker droned. Whoever was on the other end of it sounded shaky, nervous, as though he was afraid of saying the wrong thing. “We are currently being robbed.”
 
“How about a train job?” Octavia asked Vinyl drily.
 
“Yee-haw!” replied Vinyl excitedly, grinning from ear-to-ear. She spat a wad of saliva to the floor.
 
“Eww! Vinyl, we’re on a train!” complained Octavia.
 
“See, now you’re getting it!” said Vinyl. “We do need to go on trains more often!”
 
“Rather than worrying about that, how about we address the problem of the train being robbed?” Octavia asked. “We don’t have any valuables on us, and I don’t fancy being thrown out of the train because the robbers got angry at us for not having enough loot.”
 
Vinyl shrugged. “Way I see it, the robbers ask us for valuables, we don’t have any so they rob the rest of the train, we reach town after the robbery and kill time until I can cast the spell again. It’s basically a holiday!”
 
“That’s what last time period could have been, and we ended up working for the Marefia,” commented Octavia.
 
“Oh, I don’t think there’ll be any reason to work for the robbers,” said Vinyl quite seriously. “There’s no prohibition in effect, so we don’t need to steal booze.”
 
“But we-” Octavia stammered, before recomposing herself. “Well, either way, what are we going to do with regards to the robbers?”
 
“I’m guessing you won’t let us work with them, yes?” asked Vinyl. Octavia frowned. “…I’m guessing you won’t let me work with them?” The frown deepened into a scowl. “Okay then, since you’re no fun, here’s what we do – when they come around and ask us for our loot, we’ll jump them and give them the old one-two! You do that spinning kick thing that looks awesome, and I’ll make with the magic missiles! How’s that sound?”
 
“We attack our captors as they are presumably aiming crossbows or some sort of weapon at us?” Octavia asked, sceptical. “Oh well, I suppose that I have heard worse plans from you.”
 
“Worse plans?” Vinyl scoffed, folding her front legs. “I’m not sure whether I’m more offended or hurt!”
 
“How does saying that this plan isn’t your worst offend you?” Octavia asked, frowning. “As far as your plans go, this is relatively...clever? Yes, let’s go with clever,” she said thoughtfully.
 
“It’s offensive because all of my plans are brilliant and flawless!” Vinyl said enthusiastically. A moment later, she put a hoof to her mouth in thought. “…Except for my plan to escape from the Marefia with the time travel spell. We probably should have just stayed back then and spent the rest of our days working for them, yes.”
 
Octavia opened her mouth to speak. “But-”
 
“T-to all passengers: I have another announcement from the bandits regarding the robbery this train is currently undergoing,” blared the speaker above Vinyl and Octavia, drowning out whatever Octavia had been about to say. “They -they say that everypony has to come to the driver’s cabin, either one at a time or, or in pairs, and give up whatever valuables they have. If not, they will…will kill me, which will cause the train to crash and kill everypony on board.”
 
There was a pause, before the pony on the other end of the speakers continued. “So, um, if everypony could come up to the front carriage, then that would be appreciated.” There was a short crackle from the speaker as the intercom was presumably shut off.
 
“Well then, that solves the problem of how we find where the bandits are!” said Vinyl Scratch, rubbing her hooves together. Around them, other ponies were muttering nervously, or looking as though they wanted to go to the carriage and get the robbery out of the way before some madpony refused to comply and got everypony killed. “Any idea how far up the train we are?” Vinyl asked Octavia, lying down casually on her seat.
 
“We’re in the first carriage,” said Octavia, craning her neck to look through the window.
 
“We what?” asked Vinyl, jolting upwards slightly.
 
“First carriage,” said Octavia, pointing out the window. The train had just started turning a corner, and from the angle and number of visible carriages it was readily apparent that there was only one before the carriage that Vinyl and Octavia were in.
 
“You mean we-?”
 
“Yes, I think we had best head up now,” said Octavia, “the other passengers are looking at us strangely, and if we can enact your plan then we should theoretically be able to save them some bits.”
 
“Cool!” said Vinyl, jumping from her seat and starting the walk to the next carriage. “Hey, do you think they’ll be grateful enough to give us stuff?”
 
“Perhaps?” said Octavia as she opened the door from the carriage they were in. “What did you want from them?” She had to shout the last part, as the train was, naturally, quite noisy outside.
 
“A train!” shouted Vinyl back. As she spoke, her horn lit up and she opened the door to the driver’s carriage.
 
“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that,” said Octavia once they were inside the driver’s carriage. There was a door leading to the cabin in which the driver – and the bandits – would be, in addition to the train’s engine, the coals in it burning warmly. There was no sign of the coal shoveler, although Octavia supposed that he probably would have been knocked out and taken to the driver’s carriage during the initial attack on the train.
 
“I said I want a train!” Vinyl said, almost immediately causing Octavia to react by sighing and putting a hoof to her eyes. “Oh, come on, Octavia. They’re so cool!”
 
“Let’s just get this over with quickly, and hopefully nopony dies,” said Octavia quietly, putting a hoof on the handle to the driver’s cabin. “I’m doing some sort of spinning kick you believe that I can apparently do, you’re going to use your telekinesis to stop the bandits?” Vinyl nodded and crept in closer to the door, her body tensed below Octavia’s outstretched leg. ”Ready…now!” said Octavia.
 
Octavia thrust open the door, ready to leap in and attack the first pony she saw. Tensed up below her, Vinyl, too, seemed ready for an assault. But as the door opened and the two ponies saw who was in the cabin, all thoughts of attacking were lost, to be replaced with the raw emotion of shock.
 
“Vinyl Scratch?”
 
“Octavius!”
 
“Octavia?”
 
“Bass Drop?”
 
“Octavia?!”
 
“…Vinyl, I don’t know why you’re surprised to see me. I’ve been travelling with you this whole time, remember?” Octavia said dully to her companion who had, until a few seconds ago, been ready to leap out and attack what appeared to be the male version of herself in the driver’s cabin.
 
“Oh yeah! Right, why was I surprised?” Vinyl asked, grinning at her marefriend. Turning her head to face the driver’s cabin, she frowned and added, “Better question: what are Octavius and Bass Drop doing in the driver’s cabin? And with the driver tied up beside them?”
 
“It is a question all right, given that last time we saw them they had commanded those ninjas – or is it ninja? – to murder us,” Octavia said. Aside from their brief reaction to her and Vinyl’s presence as they entered, so far neither Octavius nor Bass Drop had made any hostile move. Octavia was being cautious, however – whilst the last time they had met their male counterparts they had parted on relatively positive terms, Bass Drop had a crossbow aimed at the bound train driver, and didn’t seem in a hurry to move it away.
 
“Wait! I’ve got it!” said Vinyl. “They got here before we did, and took out the bandits!”
 
“…I think they’re the bandits, Vinyl,” said Octavia bluntly.
 
“What, these two friendly guys? As if!” scoffed Vinyl. “Hey Bass Drop, Octavius: are you guys robbing this train, or did you two stop the actual robbers? Be honest with me here.”
 
“Yeah, we’re robbing the train,” said Octavius, nodding enthusiastically.
 
“Definitely. Good fun,” added Bass Drop. “You should try it sometime!”
 
“But guys, robbing trains is bad!” Vinyl whined. “You shouldn’t do bad things! Unless it’s to get a badass train, in which case it’s totally okay. Hey, can I have a carriage or two?”
 
“Vinyl raises a good point,” Octavia said, cautiously stepping fully into the cabin. As she had guessed, a pony who was wearing the uniform and cap of one in charge of the engine was tied up, just as the driver of the train was. Both of them were gagged. “Why are you two robbing a train?”
 
“And how did you two even get here?” Vinyl spurted out over the last few of Octavia’s words. “The Wild South ain’t exactly easy to get to.”
 
“How about we begin by answering the latter question first, darling?” said Octavius to Bass Drop. Whilst his jaw and overall build were, naturally, more masculine than Octavia’s, it still surprised her, as it had the previous time she had met him, how similar he was to her. The accent, the body posture, the verbal patterns…if Octavia had been in his position, she knew that she’d be doing exactly the same things that he was doing.
 
“Sure thing!” said Bass Drop, his telekinetic grip on his crossbow absentmindedly relaxing. He cleared his throat. “It was a dark and stormy night,” he began, “and two ponies had just been sent through a portal to another Equestria. A strange Equestria, where males were females and females were male!”
 
“…Maybe begin the story a little later than that?” suggested Octavius.
 
“Oh, right!” said Bass Drop. “It was a dark and stormy night, and two ponies had just taken over a ninja clan! They needed to-”
 
“They’ve heard that part already; we told them the first time we met them,” interrupted Octavius. “Are you going to tell them the relevant parts, or do I have to tell the story?”
 
“Baby, you end up taking over this story and I’ll just have to force my tongue down your throat until you let me to get back to it!” said Bass Drop, grinning. Turning back to Octavia and Vinyl, he began once again with, “It was a dark and stormy night, and two ponies had just been convinced by their weird female counterparts not to send ninjas – or was it ninja? – after them anymore.”
 
“Hey, I remember that night! It wasn’t stormy at all!” argued Vinyl. “And I don’t even think it was that dark, come to think of it.”
 
“I like stories that start with a dark and stormy night, okay?” Bass Drop argued back. “It makes for a mysterious and ominous setting, where anything could happen!”
 
“It’s a bit of a cliché though, isn’t it?” added Octavia. “I recall that night, and it wasn’t us trapped in a spooky mansion or anything similar to that, so I see no need for such a…dramatic opening to the story.”
 
“Spooky mansion?!” Vinyl asked excitedly. “Oh man, Octavia, I’ve totally found out what our next adventure is going to be!”
 
“Well fine, if you two are going to be boring,” said Bass Drop, rolling his eyes, “you guys had left the warehouse where we had kidnapped you to, and after we had some…fun, we ended up discussing how we could get back to our own, much cooler universe.”
 
“We decided that if we could travel back in time to before we got sent to this one,” continued Octavius, “then we could prevent ourselves from ever being sent here using our future knowledge.” To his side, the coal shoveler wriggled slightly in his ropes, but Octavius put a hoof on him, a subtle warning.
 
“Which, y’know, would probably rewrite the history of your universe, or cause it to explode or something, but hey, not our problem!” commented Bass Drop enthusiastically.
 
“Anyway, after around a month, we were able to find a fairly complex ritual which would supposedly work to send us back,” Octavius said. He absentmindedly ran a hoof through his hair as he talked, straightening out the few curly or messy locks. “We attempted to cast it, but something went wrong, and not only did it send us back through this Equestria’s timeline, but the amount of time it sent us back by was off by a few hundred years.”
 
“And…the train robbery?” Octavia asked, taking a few hesitant steps forwards. She was within range to attack Octavius now if things came to the worst, although with the knowledge that the robbers were her and Vinyl’s – well, not so much allies, but certainly acquaintances, it wouldn’t hurt to hear out the entire situation. And besides, Octavius had a bit more bulk than her; Octavia actually felt slightly nervous at the thought of fighting him. The last time they had encountered each other, Octavius would have easily killed Vinyl if it hadn’t been for a stroke of luck, and whilst Octavia was certainly more competent at fighting since then, between her COBRA training and some other adventures, that didn’t guarantee a victory.
 
“When we originally arrived in this universe, neither Bass Drop nor I had any sort of identification or funds upon our person,” Octavius said, his voice as smooth as silk. “Being sent back to a time you were entirely unprepared for can naturally only make things worse, and so until we acquire the items needed for the ritual once more, we have been forced to take up banditry.”
 
“Or as I like to call us, banditos!” exclaimed Bass Drop. “It sounds cooler, and feels appropriate to the setting, y’know?”
 
“So, now that we have answered your two primary questions, we have one for you,” said Octavius softly. “Simply put: what do you intend to do now?”
 
“I-” Octavia started, her voice faltering as she realised that she didn’t know what to say. Octavius and Bass Drop were certainly in a bad situation, and whilst the passengers and employees of the railway would suffer as a result of their actions, weren’t they just trying to make the best of a bad situation? What would she do in their position?
 
“Here’s my suggestion,” Vinyl began. Octavia winced, ready for an embarrassing, ridiculous, or more likely, both, suggestion. “As you can guess, we’ve used a spell ourselves to travel to this time – accidentally, like you.”
 
Here it comes, thought Octavia.
 
“How about you stop the robbery, and the four of us can work together?” Vinyl suggested. “I can teach Bass Drop the spell we’ve been using, and we can work out a way out of this without anypony getting hurt. Or robbed.”
 
“That’s a…surprisingly good idea, actually,” commented Octavia. “Nopony has actually been robbed yet, so if you two were to free the driver and anypony else captured, they would presumably be grateful enough to you for halting the robbery that they would be happy to allow us all off at the next stop.”
 
“Whaddya think, sexy?” Bass Drop asked Octavius. “Think Vinyl’s idea’s a good one?”
 
Octavius gave a small shrug. “I suppose that we cannot prepare the ritual any slower than we currently are, and if you are able to cast the spell Vinyl has been using for their journey, it may work more accurately than the ritual was supposed to.” He gave a nod, and a small smile, before turning to Octavia and Vinyl Scratch. “We have an agreement, Octavia and Vinyl.”
 
“Excellent,” said Octavia, stepping further into the driver’s cabin, confident for the first time since she had entered. “In that case, let’s get to untying the-”
 
THWACK!
 
Knocked back, Octavia’s momentum was large enough to send her flying into the ceiling of the carriage, hitting it heavily and then slamming down heavily into the floor. What…what in Equestria hit me? Octavia thought, dazed from both the surprise of being attacked and the actual impact. She had landed heavily on her back, resulting in her being winded, and she coughed slightly as she struggled to sit up.
 
As Octavia pulled herself up, she saw a scene of chaos. How it had been done, she couldn’t guess, but it appeared that the driver, a large Earth pony, had somehow managed to loosen his bonds during the conversation, and had sucker punched her when she got closer to him. At least, that was the only explanation Octavia could think of that accounted for both what had happened to her and explained why the driver was standing up, free of the ropes which had restricted him. He was currently fighting Vinyl, Octavius, and Bass Drop, all at the same time and with no apparent exertion.
 
Octavia being knocked off balance – both figuratively and literally – had thrown her for a loop, but as she coughed a bit more and started to regain her breath, she caught the latter half of an order from Octavius: “-him, Bass Drop, you were supposed to have it pointed at him in case he tried anything like this!”
 
Octavia was helpless to do anything but watch as Bass Drop aimed his crossbow at the driver, but even as it was rotated for the task, another, different magical aura surrounded the crossbow and started to pull it back. Octavia attempted to wheeze out a warning, but Bass Drop had already seen – the coal shoveler, a unicorn, had started to use his magic to help where he could, even tied up as he was.
 
Why…why are they fighting us? Octavia wondered, reaching around with a hoof and attempting to thump herself on the back. Didn’t they hear…? We can stop all of this- Even as Octavia attempted to splutter out something, anything, as long as it would stop the fighting, her voice faltered and she merely found herself coughing once more.
 
And then Octavia was able to hit herself on the back, and the tightness in her chest disappeared. She coughed one more, final time, but it wasn’t necessary by now, she had managed to get the wind back into herself and was in top fighting condition again.
 
“All right then,” said Octavia, half to herself and half to the rest of the ponies in the room, “let’s see how you like me-”
 
THWACK!
 
Once again, Octavia was dazed by a heavy impact, although this time it felt as though something had been thrown at her. Unable to brace herself, she was immediately thrown back by the full velocity of the object, and into a wall – no, not a wall, train carriages didn’t shatter that easily…Octavia was dimly aware of hitting something soft and skidding along the ground, right before everything went black.
 

===============================

 
“So…any idea where we are?” Vinyl Scratch asked, lifting the bag that had been placed over her head off telekinetically as soon as she heard the door slam. Her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the darkness yet, but she could feel something rough and crumbly below her hooves. She wanted to investigate further, but her front legs had been restrained with some cable ties, and movement would be difficult.
 
“No idea, I’m afraid,” came a posh voice to her side. “But whatever we’re lying on, it’s hurting my back.”
 
“Urgh, I know, right?” Vinyl said. “Wherever they chose to throw us, it makes a good prison.” She looked around, squinting into the darkness as best as she could. “Hay, do you think we’re being shipped again?”
 
“I- what? No, the mere idea is preposterous, Vinyl,” came a voice from the darkness.
 
“Oh yeah, we’d need to be on a ship for that, wouldn’t we?” asked Vinyl. “Heh, stupid me. Anyway, we-” Vinyl’s voice trailed off as her eyes adjusted to the darkness slightly, and she saw something she should have thought of immediately. “Oh crap, I forgot about your bag. Your hooves are tied too, aren’t they? Gimme a sec and I’ll get that off you.” Vinyl’s horn glowed softly, and a magical field began to surround her partner’s bag, before she stopped.
 
“What’s the matter?”
 
“…Don’t you think that it’s odd that Octavius and Bass Drop weren’t taken here either?” Vinyl asked, suddenly feeling nervous. She inched closer to her partner. “They – I have no idea what happened while we were knocked out.” As she spoke, Vinyl looked around in the darkness in the hopes of seeing one of her or Octavia’s male counterparts, but it appeared that it was just her and the grey Earth pony by her side.
 
“Vinyl, I think-”
 
“Do you think that they cut a deal with the train staff? Told them that they were planning to rebel against us all along, and that everything they saw was staged for their benefit?”
 
“No, Vinyl, I-”
 
“Of course,” said Vinyl, very close to her partner now, “I’m not complaining now that we’ve been left alone.” She breathed heavily outwards with her mouth, letting the pony beside her feel her soft breath. “Maybe… maybe this could be a good opportunity for us; you know what I mean, babe?”
 
“Right now might not be the best-”
 
Vinyl leaned forwards further and kissed her companion’s chest, then slowly worked her way up to where the bag was. “How about seeing that cute face of yours, sexy?” she whispered, ignoring the suggestion. Closing her eyes, Vinyl telekinetically removed the bag and leaned into the strong pony before her, unaware of said pony leaning back slightly as the kiss began.
 
“And that’s only the begin- ARGH!” Vinyl shouted, leaping backwards into the air, in spite of her front hooves still being tied together. “OCTAVIUS??!! WHAT THE HELL??!!”
 
“Don’t say that I didn’t try to stop you,” said Octavius, avoiding her gaze. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but he appeared to be blushing.
 
“I – but you – where’s Octavia?!” Vinyl stammered. “Oh, and Bass Drop too, I guess.”
 

===============================

 
The first thing Octavia did when she regained consciousness was let out a low groan, almost involuntarily. She didn’t need to get up to know that it was necessary; she didn’t need to open her eyes to know that it summed up her emotions perfectly. It perfectly encapsulated everything that made up her entire world at that precise moment.
 
The next thing Octavia noticed was the heat. The fur on her back – she was lying face down on something – felt somewhat warmer than usual, as though Octavia had been basking in Celestia’s sun for a while. After focusing on the sensation for a few moments, too exhausted to do anything more, Octavia realised that the source of the heat was due to the sun. Between that and the slight wind that brushed against her fur every few seconds, it appeared that Octavia was outside.
 
Outside…what do I need to worry about in this timeline? wondered Octavia. It’s not the dinosaurs or the future, and I recall jumping from the timeline where Vinyl was the queen…what was next? Something with…Canterlot? No, wait, we went from there to…the Wild South. Although Octavia’s eyes were already closed, she scrunched them up further as she recalled what had happened since she and Vinyl had arrived in this time.
 
Sighing, Octavia exerted a small amount of effort and picked herself up. Her muscles were quite sore and although she did not strain herself, they nevertheless ached further as she pulled herself up. As she opened her eyes, Octavia almost immediately squinted from the harsh sunlight. From the looks of things, she had somehow been thrown out of the train and into the desert through which it passed. Or had the train stopped and she had been taken out whilst unconscious? Octavia briefly considered the possibility and wondered why Vinyl –and Bass Drop and Octavius, for that matter – hadn’t been dropped off with her, before noticing the pattern of sand around her.
 
I suppose I hit the ground and skidded some distance, mused Octavia, idly skimming her hoof over the sand. It’s a good thing that this sand is fairly soft, or I –wait a moment. She examined the desert closer, noticing something she hadn’t earlier. Are those…hoofprints?  On closer inspection, whilst they weren’t very deep or noticeable in the sand, there were definitely hoofprints in the sand, originating around where Octavia had landed, and leading off in the direction of the train tracks.
 
“Vinyl?!” called out Octavia as she started to canter in the direction the hoofprints lead. Her throat was dry from the hot air, and it didn’t carry far at all. “Vinyl, are you -?” Her voice faltered as she saw a white pony with a blue mane just a short distance over the next dune. She was wondering why Vinyl looked so stocky and her mane had somehow changed style whilst she was knocked out, before logic and simple problem solving told her that it was Bass Drop.
 
“Hello,” said Octavia simply as she approached him.
 
“Hey Octavia,” he said, grinning at her. “Sorry to leave you lying there – I thought I’d have a quick look around, and I guess I ended up wandering a little, huh?”
 
“It’s fine,” said Octavia, waving a hoof dismissively. “I doubt there’s much that you could have done for me, after I…was thrown out of a window of a moving train?” she asked. Bass Drop nodded enthusiastically.
 
“I got telekinetically thrown at you, because I’m so badass that I was giving the unicorn problems!” he explained. “I’ve always liked percussion music, and now I got to try it out!”
 
Octavia laughed at that. She couldn’t help it; being lost in the middle of the desert with nothing but a pair of train tracks to show signs of civilisation existed was something of a daunting prospect, and humour certainly helped to lighten the mood. “Are you alright?” she asked as her chuckling died down.
 
“Yeah, I’ve got a really hard head. At least, Octavius always tells me so!” explained Bass Drop. “And I guess your body and the sand helped to cushion a lot of the impact? Not to sound like a perv, but your body seems really well-toned…reminds me a bit of Octavius’ when he agrees to put on the -”
 
“I believe that’s enough information right there, thank you,” said Octavia, failing to suppress the smile Bass Drop’s anecdote had triggered. “What exactly were you looking for?”
 
 “I was having a look around to see whether I could see any signs around here- preferably one giving the distance to the nearest town – but I can’t see nada. Guess they don’t bother putting signs in deserts where nopony will see them, huh?”
 
“No, I suppose that they don’t,” commented Octavia. “What are you currently thinking with regards to exiting the desert?” Octavia hadn’t exactly been dwelling on it so far, but she and Bass Drop were probably miles from the nearest town and wouldn’t reach it before the end of the day even if they galloped at full speed. Octavia had never been in a desert before – there was an adventure Vinyl would likely enjoy, she mused – but she knew of how deadly they could be both during the day and night.
 
Although Vinyl Scratch often acted silly and irrational, Octavia had seen her marefriend’s keen mind in action more than once, and was often surprised at the ideas Vinyl would come up with from time to time. If Vinyl could have fantastic ideas that were true examples of thinking outside the box, who was to say that her male counterpart couldn’t as well? With his initiative in surveying the area, Octavia was confident that Bass Drop was about to suggest a brilliant idea that would fix their current problem.
 
“See that space there?” Bass Drop asked, pointing a hoof. Octavia nodded. “Put the audience there –” he moved his hoof and pointed to a spot opposite it “- put the stage there, speakers to either side of it, and you could have a kickass concert here, y’know what I’m saying? No need to worry about sound pollution, no need to worry about limited space – it’s the perfect idea!”
 
“That’s a very…interesting idea,” said Octavia, nodding once or twice. “Um…I don’t suppose you’ve had any ideas about how we’ll meet up with Vinyl and Octavius? As far as I know they’re still on the train.”
 
“We take over the train and drive it to them?” Bass Drop suggested.
 
“…That would require us reaching the train first, negating the problem,” Octavia commented.
 
Bass Drop thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “Oh yeah. Um, then we could follow the train tracks to the next town and work it out from there?”
 
“Do I look like a workhorse?” Octavia asked, cringing. Her muscles had already taken a beating – literally – and she doubted that she would have appreciated a lengthy journey by hoof even in the best of health.
 
“Got any better ideas?” Bass Drop asked. Octavia shook her head after a brief moment of contemplation. “Then let’s get going! Don’t worry, Girl Tavi – I’m sure Tavi and Vinyl will work out something and we’ll be fine!”
 
“I hate being called Tavi,” grumbled Octavia as she and her companion took the first hoofsteps of their long, long, journey.
 

===============================


 

“So, you see?” asked Octavius to Vinyl.
 
“See what?”
 
“See that I have no idea where they are,” Octavius said simply.
 
“Oh, yeah, good point,” said Vinyl. “So…if they’re not locked up here with us, where are they then?”
 
“I was conscious the entire time we were taken here – the train has not stopped at any point,” said Octavius. As he spoke, he appeared to be straining to break the cable ties holding his hooves together. “Therefore, assuming the two of them are not somewhere else on this train, they must have somehow…been thrown out of the train? Or fallen out, perhaps; I was too busy during the fight to see what happened to them.”
 
“Fallen out of the train?” Vinyl gasped. “No! Not Octavia! Her dense and powerful Earth pony body is too weak and fragile to survive a fall from the train onto the soft, absorbent sand!”
 
“Because that makes me feel better about Bass Drop,” said Octavius drily. “As it is, once I can get out of these – out of these damn bonds,” he said, straining to break the cable ties holding his hooves together, “then we can execute my plan.”
 
“Screw that, my plan’s better!” said Vinyl.
 
“…I haven’t even said what my plan is yet,” said Octavius, temporarily stopping his escape attempt.
 
“…Oh yeah,” agreed Vinyl. “Well, still, my plan’s better!”
 
“Why?” asked Octavius. “What makes you so certain that your plan is inherently better than mine, without any prior knowledge of what mine may be, and that we should by default go with your idea? You could at least hear me out.”
 
“Why?” asked Vinyl, perhaps ten times more dramatically than she needed to. “Why, Octavius? Because my plan has a component that yours doesn’t! My plan is fuelled by passion, longing, and raw emotion! My passion was created from the heart of my…heart? Yes, my heart of hearts!
 
“For you see, what my plan has that yours doesn’t is something both simple and yet complex at the same time. It’s something that some ponies would kill for; something some ponies would die for. It’s something that I couldn’t live without, and that I pay tribute to every moment I breathe. What does my plan contain? The most elusive and desired of components: my plan contains love!!
 
“Because you see, my plan-”
 
“My plan ‘contains love’ as well, Vinyl,” interrupted Octavius.
 
“It what now?”
 
“Do you think that I do not love Bass Drop, after all of the years in which we’ve spent together?” Octavius began, a loud SNAP! accompanying his words as he finally broke the cable ties. “Do you think that just because it is two stallions which share in this love, that that somehow makes it less authentic, as though some higher authority declared it so? Neigh, for I-”
 
“Yeah, bored now,” said Vinyl. “What is your plan, anyway?”
 
Octavius scowled. “I break the cable ties holding your front two hooves together, and we storm the train. If we find Bass Drop and Octavia, we get off the train as soon as possible and discuss what to do from there. If they are not on the train, then we find out what’s happened to them and head there as soon as possible.”
 
“Hey! That’s my plan!” exclaimed Vinyl. “You stole it from me!”
 
“No, I-” Octavius sighed and put a hoof to his head in brief exasperation. “Are we in agreement with the plan then?”
 
“Sure, but you’re going out the door first,” Vinyl said simply.
 
“What? Why me?” Octavius asked. His hooves had been placed on Vinyl’s, ready to snap the cable tie holding her hooves together, but he paused the action as he spoke.
 
“You’re an Earth pony, yes?” asked Vinyl. “If they’ve got crossbows, or, or swords or whatever, then you can take the hits better than I can.”
 
“What, while you hang back here and throw small spells at them every few seconds?” asked Octavius, incredulous. “I’ll have you know, I’ll not be your meatshield.”
 
“But…Meatshield is cooler than…” Vinyl shook her head, ending that train of thought. “Look, do you know Spinning Tiger Style?”
 
“What?”
 
“You know, the martial art tree?” Vinyl elaborated. “Or style, whatever. Do you know Spinning Tiger Style?”
 
“I have never heard of it in my life,” said Octavius. “Is this one of those strange things your universe has that mine doesn’t?”
 
“Do you know Rising Dragon?” Vinyl asked, ignoring Octavius’ question.
 
“No,” said Octavius, deadpan.
 
“Lunar Phase?” Vinyl continued. “Real Impact? Super Kick 13?”
 
“I think you know the answer to all of those,” Octavius said coldly. “May I enquire as to why you are asking?
 
“Oh, okay, no biggie,” said Vinyl. “Anyway, Octavia doesn’t know any of them either, but if she did, and we were in this situation, I’d totally ask her to use one of them against whoever’s in the next carriage.”
 
“Are those even real techniques?” asked Octavius, scowling at Vinyl once more.
 
“I dunno, probably,” said Vinyl, shrugging. “As long as it sounds foreign, right?”
 
Octavius groaned. “Look, let’s just get out of here and find our partners, alright?” he said, angrily grabbing Vinyl’s hooves and using his impressive Earth pony strength to snap her cable ties.
 
“Oww!” complained Vinyl. “That really…was a good job. Thanks!”
 
“It was the least that I could do,” grumbled Octavius. “Look, you just telekinetically open the door, and we’ll rush through to the next carriage together, okay?”
 
“Sure!” said Vinyl. Her magical aura surrounded the handle of the door. “Ready?”
 
“On three,” said Octavius, getting closer to the door. “One…two…three!” On three, Octavius leapt forwards…and promptly slammed face-first into the door.
 
“The door’s locked,” said Vinyl simply, shaking the door slightly with her telekinesis to confirm it.
 
“Oh, for f-”
 

===============================

 
“Nope, think harder,” said Bass Drop. He and Octavia had been walking for around ten minutes, although if you had told Octavia that they’d been walking for ten hours she would have believed it. Swear poured from each pore of her body, drenching her coat and sapping her energy. Ponies weren’t made to live in arid environments; it was a miracle that towns such as Appleloosa had been established where it was and stayed there for as long as it had.
 
“Um…is it…something wet? Or that can be wet?” Octavia asked, looking up briefly to the sky as she did spoke. Unfortunately for her, the skies were as clear as they had been thirty seconds ago.
 
“Nope!” said Bass Drop. “One more to go, so if you don’t get it on this question I win!”
 
“Is it a…” Octavia paused midsentence to think. It was hard to do so with the throbbing of her head, but she tried nevertheless. “A…giant red scissor blade?” Octavia finally said, it being the first physical object her mind could think of.
 
“Wrong, Octavia!” said Bass Drop happily. How he could ignore the heat so easily – Octavia could see him sweating just as much as her – was a mystery unto itself, and with every second that passed, Octavia resisted the opportunity to throttle him until he told her all of his secrets. Some part at the back of Octavia’s mind reminded her that that wasn’t a very responsible way to behave, but another, smarter, part of her countered that thought with the knowledge that the heat was almost literally murder.
 
“So, do I get to hear what this mystery object is?” Octavia asked, realising that Bass Drop wasn’t saying anything else – perhaps he had been waiting for the prompt. “I have spent the last twenty questions attempting to discover it, you know.”
 
“Oh yeah!” said Bass Drop. “So, you started out asking whether it was a pony, then whether it was a living thing, then whether it was food, then whether –” Octavia waved a hoof, gesturing for him to hurry up “-and then, after twenty questions, you guessed that it was a giant pair of purple and red scissors!” Octavia sighed, not even questioning how he mutated her poor guess into…that. “And you were way off!” continued Bass Drop. “The thing I was thinking of? Sand!”
 
“What?” asked Octavia, deadpan and blunt.
 
“Yeah! It’s not a pony, it’s not living, it’s not food, it’s not blue, it-”
 
“Yes, I can see how it fits the criteria,” said Octavia, pausing briefly in her step to wipe a patch of sweat from her forehead. “But can we…I don’t know…if we’re going to be playing games to kill the time, can we at least not focus on the dizzying heat? The overwhelming temperature? The crushing weather? The Celestia-damned desert which is the cause of most of our problems at present? This heat is…is… how can some ponies like this climate?”
 
“Sorry, Octavia!” said Bass Drop. “How about we try a different game?”
 
Octavia hesitated for a moment, before making a decision. The walk through the desert was both tedious and lengthy, and whatever could help to distract from the heat would be an effective help. And who knows? Perhaps the next game they played would help to get her to understand Bass Drop better.
 
“Certainly,” said Octavia. “Would you like to start?”
 
“Sure!” said Bass Drop. “I spy with my little eye…” He turned his head around once or twice, his distinctive glasses masking wherever his eyes may have been focused. “…Something beginning with…S!”
 
“…Sand?” asked Octavia, her expression unamused.
 
“Don’t be ridiculous, Octavia!” said Bass Drop. “You didn’t want me to talk about the desert, so I won’t!” He had been leading the two ponies alongside the railway tracks, but as he finished speaking he turned around and lowered his glasses slightly. “Do I look like a pony who’d screw up like that?”
 
“Okay, okay, that is a fair enough point,” agreed Octavia. “Is it…um, storm?”
 
“None that I can see.”
 
“Snake?!” Octavia asked, looking around the ground.
 
“Nope!”
 
“Scratch? As in, Vinyl Scratch?” Octavia asked, feeling slightly hopeful.
 
“Heh, you would have heard me shout out if I’d seen her.”
 
Octavia looked around the two ponies for about a minute, but soon came to the conclusion that there wasn’t anything else visible beginning with S.
 
“I give up,” she finally admitted. “What did you see?”
 
“Well, you said you didn’t want to think about the desert or the heat, yeah?” asked Bass Drop. “So I looked upwards: Sun!”
 
Octavia smacked a hoof into her face, wondering whether she could murder Bass Drop and get away with it. She soon began backing away from that train of thought, realising that being in an isolated place with very few ponies wishing to visit it was the perfect murder location, and that in spite of some personal feelings at the moment it probably wasn’t best for her to kill her only current companion.
 
“Can I go again?” asked Bass Drop. He was like a little colt, wishing only to play games and not risk being serious for a single moment.
 
“Sure,” sighed Octavia, accepting it as inevitable.
 
“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with…T!”
 
“Train?” asked Octavia amusedly.
 
“Yeah! Good going, Octavia, you got it on the first try!”
 

===============================

 
The door to the carriage was pushed down, hesitantly at first, then more confidently. An Earth pony entered, squinting at the darkness for a moment before remembering that he had brought a torch. He promptly turned it on.
 
“Blazing Flame?” he called out into the carriage. “What’s taking you so long to get the- oh, crap,” he said as he saw two discarded bags on the floor. “Blazing Flame? Are you in here? Do you know what’s happened to the prisoners?”
 
The Earth pony heard a hoofstep behind him, but as he began to turn around, he felt something touch the back of his head softly.
 
“Please, don’t turn your head, or for that matter, your body,” came a quiet, refined voice. “I would hate to snap your neck because you attempted to find out more than you know.”
 
“Would you really do that, or are you just-” began another voice, before being interrupted.
 
“Silence!” hissed the refined voice. “Now, answer a few questions of ours, and we shall see what we can do about letting you out of here.”
 
“Why should I?”
 
“My associate here is a unicorn with the most powerful magical potential since Star Swirl the Bearded,” answered the refined voice. “She can teleport the protons out of your atoms, or cancel the effects of gravity upon you, leaving you floating in space away from the rotating planet very swiftly. She can hyperaccelerate you so fast that you catch fire in the brief moments before liquefying. All of this she can do, and more.
 
“As for myself? ‘He’s just an Earth pony’, you may think. Yes, I am just an Earth pony – an Earth pony who has mastered the ancient art of… of Super Kick 13. I can crush your bones to powder with one well-placed kick, and not even a strong one at that. I can punch you so fast that you die before you feel the pain, or so your internal organs rupture from the excessive force and your last few minutes are spent lying on the ground vomiting up blood. And what is more, I can do it with extraordinary ease.
 
“So please, for your own sake, try not to do anything rash.”
 
“You two…you’re the prisoners, aren’t you?” asked the Earth pony.
 
“Yep!” answered Vinyl before Octavius could deny her the opportunity.
 
“…Really, Vinyl?” Octavius asked. “I’m going for an air of mystery here, something to maybe confuse our quarry and get him to question whether or not we’ve truly escaped or whether there’s a greater threat, and you just tell him who we are?”
 
“Well, it’s rude to not answer somepony’s question,” said Vinyl, shrugging.
 
“Can I just talk to you two normally?” the Earth pony asked. Vinyl looked to Octavius for advice.
 
“…Fine,” he said, sighing, “but I reserve the right to snap his neck if he tries anything.” Octavius failed to notice the concerned look Vinyl gave him.
 
“Alright, what do you want to know?” the Earth pony asked, seeming to relax a little.
 
“Well, for a start, why has the train stopped?” Octavius asked. “Why are you not in the front carriage, still driving it?”
 
“I would be, but we ran out of coal,” answered the Earth pony, the train driver. “At least, that’s what I assume happened; the train stopped, and Blazing Flame, the coal shoveler, wasn’t where he should have been, so I headed down here to see whether he was gathering more coal for the engine.” The driver paused. “Was he here? Did you two already attack him?”
 
“He’s still alive,” answered Octavius quietly. “For now. Next question: why did you and the coal shoveler fight us and our other two companions? You heard us in the cabin; we would have been content with stopping the robbery and simply getting off at the next station.”
 
The driver chewed his lip, apparently internally debating something. After a few moments, he said, “Well, I suppose it’s not like anypony would believe you…Blazing Flame and I made a deal with some smugglers to transport some goods for them along this route.”  
 
“Smugglers!” Vinyl interrupted. “This…the crumbly stuff in this carriage! It’s heroin!”
 
“…No, it’s coal,” said the driver, unamused. “Anyway, you ponies had already announced the robbery to the rest of the train; if we simply let you go free then there would be an investigation, and the smuggling would have inevitably been discovered. But if we managed to stop you, and wrap everything up nicely? That makes us heroes, and less likely to be investigated.”
 
“Hmm. That’s not actually a bad scheme,” commented Octavius. “Still, as it is, you’re a threat to us and our two companions…Vinyl, shall I?”
 
“Oh, just stick to knocking him out,” Vinyl said. “The way this is going, the guards will end up investigating him either way.”
 
Octavius clicked his tongue in annoyance, but nevertheless drew back his hoof to punch out the driver. As he swung it, however, the train driver swung his hoof upwards, deflecting the blow. “Please,” he said, “do you ponies think that I’m just going to stand here and let myself be knocked out?” He swung a hoof at Octavius, knocking him to the ground with one punch. “Do you think that I want to be caught?” He kicked Octavius in the ribs, eliciting a gasp of pain from the grey Earth pony. “Do you think that I fell for that crap about you two being more magical and strong than other ponies?” He put a hoof above Octavius’ head and raised it slightly, anticipating crushing the other pony’s skull.
 
“Yes?” asked Vinyl, moments before surrounding the driver with her telekinetic field. She then flipped – no, she tried to flip the driver onto his back, but his mass was too great. As it was, he floated into the air slightly and started to rotate, before Vinyl’s magic gave out and he simply dropped to the floor of the carriage again. “Damn!” said Vinyl, rubbing her horn with a hoof. “I guess the time travel spell was still too recent…”
 
“Dunno what you’re talking about, but don’t think that it’ll stop me from hurting you too!” said the driver. He had turned around to face her as he spoke, and now that he was facing her, he delivered an uppercut which sent her flying through the air and into a wall.
 
What’s that pony on? wondered Vinyl, her head dizzy as the driver approached her. Steroids? Actually, that would explain- Her train of thought stopped as the driver delivered a right hook to her face, immediately causing copious amounts of blood to spray from her nose. Before Vinyl could even think about moving out of the way or retaliating, another hoof, this one from her right, hit her heavily, sending her sprawling to the floor.
 
Vinyl couldn’t do anything but look up at her impending doom from below. As he had been about to with Octavius, the driver had raised a hoof above her head, and was about to crush her skull, killing her immediately. Vinyl made a weak attempt to light up her horn and do something, anything, but all that she got out of it was a few sparks. Was this the end for her?
 
SLAM!
 
“Vinyl, are you in- Hey! Get away from my marefriend!”
 
“Also my stallionfriend, yo.”
 
Nah, of course not.
 
“Huh, I thought you’d been killed when you fell through the window…or at least more injured,” said the driver in response to the sudden arrival of Octavia and Bass Drop.
 
“If I had every bone in my body broken and was dragged through the gates of Tartarus itself, I would still force myself to gallop out of there and to wherever Vinyl was,” Octavia growled, snorting slightly once she finished. “There’s only one pony allowed to decide when she dies, and that’s me!”
 
“Thanks?” asked Vinyl weakly. “Octavia, what are you doing here? Wh-how did you even get here?”
 
“Deus ex m- I mean, no time to explain!” Octavia said. Rather than wasting any more energy on words, she leapt upwards onto her back legs, then jumped forwards with a hoof outstretched, aiming herself directly at the train driver. She hit him directly in the face, causing him to stumble backwards a few steps.
 
“Octavius! Quick!” said Octavia. Vinyl rolled slightly to her side, where she saw Bass Drop helping Octavius to his hooves, albeit shakily. “Help me stop him!”
 
Without so much as a word of confirmation of his participation in Octavia’s plan, if you could call it that, Octavius swept his back hooves towards the driver’s back hooves, knocking him off balance and sending him falling onto his back. Octavia quickly leapt upon the opportunity presented, and punched him heavily in the face. And then again when he made a movement to get up. And again. And a fourth time, with Octavius helping her this time.
 
“And stay down!” Octavia growled to the driver.
 
“N-no,” he stammered, his face heavily bruised and bleeding, “not so long as I-”
 
WHACK!
 
“Is that it then?” asked Octavia after a moment. She was breathing heavily from the concentrated portion of exercise she had just performed.
 
“I believe so,” said Octavius, similarly exhausted. He glanced at the seemingly unconscious driver, who gave no visible sign that he was still conscious. “A good thing, too; that was starting to feel like a bad recurring joke.”
 
“So then,” began Bass Drop, “we have a carriage full of coal, a train full of passengers who are probably wondering why the train’s still stopped, and two unconscious ponies.
 
“What do we do now?”
 

===============================

 
“-and so then the patient said, ‘But doctor, I can’t afford my hospital bill!’” said Bass Drop. Around her, Octavia, Octavius, and Bass Drop all burst into laughter at the joke.
 
“Wait a minute, that’s not hilarious, that’s tragic!” exclaimed Octavia suddenly.
 
“So sue me,” said Bass Drop, grinning. The four ponies were out in the desert, having decided that with Vinyl’s time travel spell being a reliable enough vector for exiting, they could simply leave the train to go on its way. A good twenty minutes after they had headed over some dunes, where they would be invisible to the train, they had seen it take off again, the engine presumably refilled with coal. As it was, they had now been out in the desert for several hours, waiting for Vinyl to be ready to cast the spell. Dusk had fallen a short while ago, and the stars were out.
 
“Well, whatever,” replied Octavia. “Vinyl, do you think that you shall be able to cast the spell by now?”
 
“You don’t want to hang out with Octavius and Bass Drop any more, baby?” asked Vinyl.
 
Octavia shook her head. “I hope that this next jump just gets us to where we need to go,” she said. “I’m over time.”
 
“You’re over a measure of events which can be order from past to present to future, which may be classified as the fourth dimension and which we are all inevitably stuck in?” Octavius asked, confused.
 
“Did I say I was over time? I meant to say that I was over time travel,” said Octavia, rolling her eyes.
 
“Yeah, I suppose it’ll be good to get back home, see Serpent Superior and the whole gang,” said Vinyl, grinning. “Maybe we’ll be lucky and Destroyer will forget that I owe him several million bits!”
 
“What in Equestria have you two been up to since we last saw you?” asked Octavius, frowning in confusion.
 
Vinyl shrugged. “Bass Drop, you reckon you can cast the spell using my instructions, yeah?”
 
He gave her a mock salute. “Aye aye, captain!”
 
“Cool!” said Vinyl. “Just remember, we’re not sure how exactly it determines when to send ponies, so it could end up being worse for you than if you hadn’t cast it!”
 
“Pfft. What’s life without a little danger anyway?” asked Bass Drop.
 
“Well then, I suppose that this is goodbye,” said Octavia as Vinyl’s horn began to light up. “Best of luck to the both of you whenever you go, and I hope that you two end up getting back to your home dimension.”
 
“There’s too many mares in this one,” shuddered Bass Drop, wrapping a hoof around Octavius’ shoulder as he did so.
 
“Best of luck to you two, too,” said Octavius politely. “I hope we never meet again – if you know what I mean – but if we do, I am sure that it will be the best of circumstances.”
 
“We’re gonna get so drunk!” said Bass Drop.
 
And then, that was that. Vinyl’s had finished casting the spell, and for the umpteenth time, she and Octavia were sucked into the swirling chronal vortex. Around them, everything was replaced in less than a second – no longer were they in the cooling desert, but standing inside what appeared to be a small apartment. Octavia walked over to a sliding glass door, which lead to a balcony, and looked outside.
 
“So, any clue when we are?” Vinyl asked. “If we have to live through that Celestia-damned decade when vuvuzelas were the hot musical genre…”
 
“Vinyl, I…I think we’re home,” said Octavia quietly.
 
“We what now?”
 
“Come out here and tell me that we’re not in Manehattan,” Octavia said. “Our Manehattan, Vinyl.” She looked around. “In fact…I think that this is our apartment.”
 
“That…that’s good news, Octavia, but I have some bad news to go along with it,” said Vinyl. “According to this newspaper, this isn’t our time.”
 
“Where did that even come from?” Octavia wondered aloud as she entered the apartment again, closing the door behind her. “When are we, then? It all looks so similar…”
 
“Well, according to the date on this, we’ve arrived one week since the raid on the library. You know, where we got the time travel scroll from?” Vinyl asked. She grimaced as she held up the newspaper. “As soon as my magic’s ready again…we’ve gotta jump.”
 
“…You do that and I’ll get a horn implant solely so that I can learn the time travel spell, travel back to right now, and stop you from making such a dumb decision,” Octavia growled. “Now come on! We’ve spent the last few hours sitting around with Octavius and Bass Drop; we have to go see Serpent Superior to explain where we’ve been the last week.”
 
“But wait,” exclaimed Vinyl as her marefriend dragged her out of the apartment, “I haven’t gotten Destroyer his three million bits yet!”
 
As the Octavia closed the door to the apartment behind them, neither pony saw the note which fell out of the newspaper and drift slowly to the ground. It would remain there until they returned later that evening, at which point Octavia would throw it in the recycling bin alongside the newspaper, with neither pony aware of its presence. It read:
 
To Vinyl, and her very good friend(?) Octavia,
 
I am not sure where the two of you are at present, and my other attempts to contact you have failed thus far. Nevertheless, if you find this note, I have good news for you.
 
I am unaware of what the two of you are currently doing for employment, or how you managed to escape The Fort, but having recently discovered the crimes you supposedly committed which landed the two of you in jail, I have investigated them of my own accord. It didn’t take long for me to discover that you had both been framed, and whilst my superiors wouldn’t be happy with it if they knew, I have wiped your criminal records. Obviously there’s nothing I can do about ponies’ memories, but if you wish to return to Canterlot and your old lives, there is nothing the law can do to stop you.
 
Keep safe, and I hope that the two of you are well. If you wish, you may write to me at the address on the back of this note – Vinyl, I would love to see you again, and to meet your friend Octavia. There are some things I need to say.
 
A Friend.
 

===============================

 
“Not that I didn’t enjoy seeing my past self, but home is quite nice when it’s just the two of us, isn’t it?” asked Future Octavia, twenty-five years later. She swiped her keycard in the slot by her and Future Vinyl’s door, opening it up.
 
“Yeah, ain’t nothing like spending time with my special somepony!” said Future Vinyl, jumping onto her back and kissing her cheek. Future Octavia was startled for a moment by the unexpected weight, but soon adjusted, and smiled at Future Vinyl.
 
“Seeing as how we have the apartment to ourselves again, how about we head into the bedroom?” Future Octavia asked Future Vinyl softly. “If you know what I-”
 
She stopped mid-sentence, as a swirling blue vortex appeared in the middle of their apartment. Her eyes widened in fear and surprise – this shouldn’t be happening. She had no recollection of travelling to the future twice, so it could only be another pony – or ponies - time travelling. But if so, why were the two ponies appearing from the vortex a white unicorn and a dark-coated Earth pony?
 
“Urgh…man, you’d have thought that Vinyl would have told me about how much of a drain that spell is,” said Bass Drop, putting a hoof to his head for a moment. “Just gimme a minute to lie down, babe, and we’ll-” He opened his eyes, immediately seeing Future Vinyl and Future Octavia. “Oh, um, hi!” he greeted.
 
“Oh, Cyber-Celestia damn it all,” groaned Future Vinyl. “Not again.”
 
THE END