Her eyelids were heavy and tired. Her head was pounding. She tried to stand up but she didn't have the strength. She tried to look around but all she could see was darkness in all directions. The pounding in her head was getting worse. She was in so much pain but she still tried to get back to her feet. She made it to the halfway mark before she fell feebly back to the ground.
She was about to try again until she heard a voice speak to her. "Why do you bother trying so much?" the disembodied voice asked, seemingly originating from all around her. She didn't respond. Instead she tried to get up again only to fall back down a second time. The voice laughed at her. "You know it's pointless. No matter how many times you try to pick yourself back up, you're just going to be thrown back down." the voice said as she tried a third time. This time though she felt something forcefully push her back down. "You see? Every time. It never changes."
Before she could try yet again she saw an image appearing in front of her. She recognized the scene immediately. It was like she was watching her own memories from her point of view turned into a movie.
The view showed the hallway of a school building, a group of ponies gathered a few feet ahead towards the left side of the hall. The "camera" approached them and said something unheard. After a moment of exchanging awkward gazes, the group of ponies said something unheard back before walking off and laughing. The view turned downwards as a small tear dropped onto the ground below.
She remembered it all perfectly. She had asked if the group was doing anything after school and if she could join them. They just said no and laughed at her. All she wanted to do was hang out with somepony else and they laughed at her like she was some kind of freak.
The voice spoke up again. "They were so cruel. They didn't even care about your feelings, they just didn't want to be seen with somepony like you. After all, who would?" it said in a mocking sort of tone.
The scene changed to the inside of a house... her house, or more appropriately her parents house. There were two ponies on the screen, her father and mother. They were arguing with the camera angrily. The words and shouts went unheard but she remembered them like they were said yesterday. As the argument grew more intense it hit it's end when the camera quickly turned around and rushed out the front door. The camera continued rushing from the house, never looking back. She could remember her father yelling after her.
Her parents had gotten upset with her because she had been staying out and coming home in the middle of the night without ever informing them. They came to the conclusion she must have been out doing drugs with others, or worse being one of... "those" kinds of mares. The truth was she just wanted to spend as much of her time away from the house as she could. She hated being at home. She hated having to talk to her parents. All they ever did was criticize her actions and compare her with a certain other family member.
As the scene faded, the voice spoke yet again. "Isn't it pathetic? They never did anything but compare you to "her" and put you down, yet they got angry at you when their own imaginations thought up something absurd. They never even bothered to ask if they were right, they just went straight to yelling at you for being a failure and doing things unbefitting of a well raised mare. Why couldn't you be like "her"? Why couldn't you be like the apparent perfection that was their first daughter?" She shook her head in denial, but the voice just laughed again.
The scene changed once more, this time to a nightclub filled with ponies dancing to the music that blasted throughout it. The camera however was focused on a stallion with his hoof on it's "shoulder". Another hoof, belonging to the camera, swatted the stallion's hoof away angrily. He just laughed and said something before trying to grab at the camera again. After a small struggle, the camera grabbed a bottle off a nearby table and smashed it over the stallion's head, knocking him to the floor. The camera staggered back a little as it looked at the scene in front of it, other ponies rushing into view. A few helped the stallion to his feet as he yelled something at the camera. The camera turned and ran away, rushing out the nearest exit and down the streets.
The voice decided to laugh before it spoke this time. "He'd pretended to be your friend. He'd said all those nice things, but in the end he only actually wanted one thing from you. He wasn't the only one either. Nobody ever cared about your feelings or what you wanted. It was always about them. "Knowing a DJ will get us in free of charge." "Hey I heard she'll give "it" up to anypony for a chance to play a gig" "She's nothing but a freak, a total slut". Oh the things they say. The stories they imagine without ever speaking a word to you."
She was crying now, but the voice was merciless. "Yet you never got the message behind it all. You decided to foolishly try, try, and try again. No matter how many times you got tossed away and treated like garbage, you kept telling yourself next time would be better, it would be different... and it never was. But that's fine. After all, it was better than acknowledging the truth, right?"
She shook her head weakly, muttering a tearful "no" over and over to herself. She wanted it to stop, she wanted to go home.
The voice laughed. "Home? What home? You don't have a home! You never did. No place would ever want to be called home by somepony like you. All you ever did was run from place to place. Things went sour and you ran away until they went sour again so that you could keep running. That's what you really wanted, isn't it? You enjoyed the heartbreak and the running. You always knew that nopony was ever really your friend. You were just waiting for the moment where they threw you away like the trash you are. You liked it didn't you?" the pain in her head was excruciating. She muttered another "no" as she held her head in her hooves. There was a pause before the voice spoke up again. "But that's all over now. Now that there's nothing left, nopony can hurt you anymore. Oh, except. For. Her."
The screen reappeared, showcasing a gray coated mare with a beautiful black mane. She looked at the screen tearfully. "Octavia..." she whispered, shaking her head in disbelief.
The voice laughed. "That's right, that one. You know what going to happen, don't you? She's using you to help her find what she's looking for. Then she'll drop you and leave you behind to spend eternity alone. She doesn't care about you. She's just like all the others."
"No... She wouldn't.... she's different." she said weakly.
"Oh she's different is she? She already said what she really thinks about you, you just chose to ignore it. You're just an annoyance to her. You do nothing but slow her down. You just get in her way. It's amazing she's put up with you as long as she has already, isn't it? It won't be long before she gets rid of you at this rate." She kept shaking her head in denial. When the voice spoke again, it was as if it was whispering right into her ear. "What do you say we switch the tables around. Just this once. WE'LL be the ones who drop HER. We need to go quick though. There's not much time left. Or do we have all the time in the world? Doesn't matter really, does it? Let's see what it's like to be on the other side."
The darkness around her was closing in. It began enveloping her. She couldn't breathe, everywhere the darkness spread began to sting with immeasurable pain. When it reached her horn, she let out a scream of agony. It felt like her horn was being forcibly torn off her head.
After a few moments, the voice spoke to her one last time, but this time it was almost like the voice was coming from inside her own mind.
"Don't worry, it'll all be over so quickly. Then you can go back to being alone... just like you always really wanted."
Suddenly she was overcome with a feeling of power. The pain was still excruciating but she didn't care anymore. Instead, her feelings turned to anger. Anger at every pony she ever knew who treated her like garbage. Anger at the world for forcing this fate on her. And anger at Octavia, because she would be the next one to throw her away like trash.
It was through these eyes of anger that she looked towards the gray mare. She wouldn't let it happen again. She would put an end to all of it. She'd destroy the whole world if she had to. She could hear the voices of those who'd tossed her away mocking her in her head. They never ceased and only grew louder with time. No matter how many times she shouted at them to stop they just kept judging, laughing, mocking. With a final scream of rage, she rushed at the image of Octavia, overflowing with killing intent.
She would put an end to it all here and now.
----------------------
Vinyl jolted upright. Her breathing was erratic. Her vision was blurry. Her head felt like it had a cannon going off inside it and every inch of her body had a sort of numbing pain to it. Before she could take any further action, she was gently pushed back down onto what felt like grass.
"Easy now, you haven't fully healed yet." a voice said to her. She recognized the voice's owner as Octavia. She looked up and tried to focus her eyes but all she could make out was a gray blur that looked vaguely similar in shape to a pony. "I know you probably don't understand what's going on, but you need to rest right now." she said comfortingly, moving out of sight briefly before returning.
"I-I'm... f-fine..." Vinyl said unconvincingly, her breathing still uneven. She tried to steady her breaths. It took some time but eventually her breathing returned to it's regular rhythm. Her vision was slower to fix itself, a fact that irritated her greatly. Once again she attempted to sit up and once again Octavia eased her back down.
Octavia sighed. "I told you, you need to rest. Everything..." she took a breath to calm her suddenly unsteady voice. "Everything is alright now." she said with a nod as if meaning to reassure herself more than Vinyl.
"W-what do you mean. What happened?" Vinyl asked, turning her head to the side to try and get a better view. Her vision still seemed to insist on taking it's sweet time before fully fixing itself.
Octavia was initially confused by the question but after a moment she understood. "I... I'll tell you once you're feeling better." she replied. It hadn't occurred to her until the question was asked. Vinyl had absolutely no idea what had happened. It probably felt as if a chunk of the past few hours was missing from her memory. "Well it typically isn't normal to for one's memory to just blank out like that" the mare thought to herself.
"Octavia...? What's wrong? Tell me what happened." Vinyl demanded, feeling uneasy due to the odd response.
Octavia shook her head. "Not now. Rest." was all she was willing to say as she quickly stopped Vinyl from trying to get up for the third time. Vinyl tried to protest but the gray pony was having none of it. "Yes I understand, "you're alright" and "you feel fine". Except that you're not, and you don't. Trust me, just rest right now... please."
Vinyl was caught by surprise. Octavia almost sounded like she was pleading with her to just lay down and be quiet for now. Something obviously happened but no matter how hard she tried to remember, nothing came to her mind. Octavia sat down beside her. Her vision was a little clearer now and she could make out the other mare's face finally. At first it looked to be sporting the same stoic expression as always. As she focused harder however, Vinyl noticed something else there. She couldn't make out what it was exactly but it didn't look like a happy kind of expression.
"What the hell happened..." she thought as she turned to look at the sky. The pain in her body was beginning to subside and her vision continued to slowly adjust back to its normal state. Despite all of this though, her head still felt foggy. Beyond that there was something else. She couldn't pinpoint just what it was, but she felt different somehow. She felt Octavia's front hoof nudge her own. After a moment of confusion at the other pony's actions, she nudged it back. Looking back up at Octavia, Vinyl swore she saw the smallest of smiles on her face, but it went away just as quickly as it came.
They stayed that way for a while, looking off into the distance as time both did and did not pass by. Not a word was said by either one of them. At some point Vinyl had found enough strength to sit up. Octavia didn't notice and Vinyl chose not to say anything, opting instead to just continue with the somehow comfortable silence between them.
It seemed like an eternity before the silence was broken, but eventually Vinyl spoke up. "So... When we... If we get through all this... and we manage to fix everything. What are you gonna do?" She asked, continuing to look off into the distance as she did so.
Octavia didn't move her gaze either as she responded. "I don't know... even if everything goes back to normal then how... how are WE supposed to? After everything that's happened... everything that will or might happen... do we just pretend that we never did any of this? That time never froze? That I never used magic? Will anypony else actually realize anything happened? And of course, will we even remember everything?" she responded with all of the questions that popped into her head. She gave a small, forced sounding laugh. "I don't know if I'll even want to remember everything..."
"I would." Vinyl said immediately. Octavia looked over at her questioningly but Vinyl just kept staring off as she continued. "I wouldn't want to forget everything... I've seen so many unbelievable things already... I've realized some things about myself... come to terms with a couple things... If I forgot all of this then I'd forget all that stuff too." Octavia looked away, but her gaze was pulled back after Vinyl said her next words. "I don't want to forget about meeting you either..."
Octavia looked at her for a moment before looking away, feeling the slightest blush coming on. "I'm not so sure. After all the trouble we caused for each other-"
"I'm serious." Vinyl looked at her this time. "I don't want to forget about the first real friend I've had in a while..." she said quietly.
"Come now, I'm sure you have plenty of friends. Besides, I hardly think I deserve to be called your frien-"
Vinyl cut her off again. "If you aren't my friend then I don't know what else to call you. You might not believe me, but you're the first pony who's showed me any sort of real kindness in a long time..." Octavia was about to protest but Vinyl didn't give her the chance. "You saved my life twice already... and I think it's safe to assume that you saved me a third time not too long ago considering I woke up with a bunch of injuries and no memory of how I got them... Instead of just leaving me when you got angry with me you let me stay with you. I know you might just say something about how it's because you can't do this on your own, but even if that's true it still means a lot to me... You let me in on the painful moments in your life, even if you were really, REALLY mad at me when you did... If I can't call you a friend after all that, then I need to invent a new word to classify you as." Vinyl finished with a small sigh.
A moment of silence passed between the two, Vinyl finished with her speech and Octavia unable to find any words to form a response. Eventually she decided though.
"I think I owe you an explanation..." she said. Vinyl nodded with a smile, holding up her front leg to show off the bracelet that she'd taken notice of when she had finally managed to sit up. Octavia shook her head though. "Not just for that... There's more..."
----------------------
Vinyl sat in a stunned silence. Octavia had just told her about everything that had happened in the castle ruins. About how Vinyl had attacked her in a blind rage, about how she had managed to subdue her, and about how she had gotten them out of the castle as soon as her magic came back. Vinyl was about to apologize, the only thing she could think of saying, but Octavia stopped her.
"Don't... it's not your fault. Before I got us out, I found what I was supposed to be looking for in that room. It was some kind of crystal. It was pitch black and it burned my hoof when I tried to touch it. I can only assume that it was the source of whatever energy possessed you... it probably would have possessed me too if it weren't for my magic... that's probably why I got the feeling that I was being drawn to it... the crystal was trying to pull me in while my magic was letting me know where it was so I could get away from it." she explained. Vinyl just looked off in disbelief.
The last thing Vinyl could remember before her memory just cut off entirely was walking up the stairway in the main hall. Everything after that was completely absent from her mind. "You didn't take that thing with you, did you?" she asked quickly once she regained her senses.
Octavia shook her head. "Like I said, it burned just trying to touch, I didn't bother to risk finding out what happened if I actually picked it up. Besides, it crumbled into dust soon after... But that doesn't mean it was pointless for us to go there. After all, you've got a bracelet now too... WAIT! I can't believe I forgot! Your magic! Try using it!" Octavia said quickly once it dawned on her.
Vinyl's eyes widened at the revelation. Nodding quickly in response, she stood up and looked around for something. Spotting a rock not too far from them, she attempted to bring it over using her magic. To their surprise and Vinyl's delight, the rock slowly rose from the ground and floated over to them. Vinyl was ecstatic as she jumped up and down in happiness. "I can't believe it! It's back!"
"Try something bigger. See if you can summon the magic into some kind of form like I do." Octavia suggested. Vinyl nodded happily in agreement. Closing her eyes to focus herself, two orbs of blue light quickly began to form, one at each of her sides.
"YES!" Vinyl shouted in celebration. As she did so, the orbs suddenly shot out before exploding in the distance. "Woah!"
Octavia shook her head but was unable to contain a small laugh. "You need to stay focused or else you'll lose control of them."
"Oh, okay. I get it." Vinyl said seriously before closing her eyes and summoning the orbs back to her sides. Octavia couldn't help but smile in response to her companion's happiness. It was too infectious to withstand, even for her. "So how do I blow stuff up with it?" Vinyl asked excitedly as the orbs disappeared.
"Pardon?"
"You know!" Vinyl motioned to her. "Like you did when you fought those monsters. How do you do that?"
"Oh. Well, um, you need to activate the bracelet first I guess."
Vinyl looked down at the accessory newly attached to her leg. "How do you do that?"
"You just have to think it. Take a deep breath and focus on the bracelet and it kind of just does the rest on it's own." She instructed.
"Does this mean I'll get a pretty dress like you?" Vinyl teased the gray pony who just sighed and shook her head.
"I knew you'd bring that up again. Look, just activate it already." Octavia ordered, surprisingly less irritated than she thought she'd be. Vinyl stuck her tongue out childishly before taking a step back. After closing her eyes and taking a few deep breaths, she began to float in the air slightly while being enveloped in a bright blue light. After a moment, the light faded and she felt her hooves touch the ground again. Opening her eyes, she turned her neck here and there to look herself over. Just as they both expected, she was now clad in a dress similar to the one that Octavia's bracelet seemed to summon, though with a soft blue theme instead of Octavia's purple. Her bracelet was also glowing brighter than before.
Octavia looked from Vinyl's bracelet to her own before speaking. "From my understanding, activating the bracelet boosts the power of your magic, but it also makes it drain quicker than normal." she explained. Vinyl just nodded quickly in response, still obviously excited over the new developments. "Shall we practice then? It takes some getting used to..." Octavia said lowly, inadvertently reminding herself of her first time using her magic, when she was first attacked. Her expression lightened though when she saw Vinyl eagerly nodding her head.
They spent the next half hour or so getting Vinyl up to speed with how to use her newfound abilities. When her bracelet started losing it's glow, they decided it was time to take a break.
Falling back onto the grass with a smile on her face, Vinyl couldn't help but laugh happily. Octavia took a seat next to her as she spoke. "I know this is a good thing but don't you think you're overdoing it?"
"No way!" was the instant response. "You don't know what it's like, suddenly being unable to use magic at all after using it your whole life. It felt like I was missing a part of myself or something..." Vinyl said with a grimace before smiling once again. "But now I've got it back! and if those things attack us again then I'll actually be able to help! We'll show 'em!" Vinyl said, jumping back up to her hooves excitedly. Something dawned on her then. She'd forgotten in all the excitement of getting her magic back, but Octavia had said that there was more to explain than just what happened during the time Vinyl couldn't remember. As she mentioned it to Octavia, she suddenly wished she didn't when she saw the gray pony's expression harden.
After taking a breath and a moment to find the words, Octavia began. "It's something I never really noticed because I didn't have time to think about it I suppose. But after you returned to normal and I got us out of those ruins I had some time to think and it just sort of came to mind..."
Vinyl nodded but didn't speak, letting Octavia continue uninterrupted for once. Octavia honestly would've preferred she did get interrupted though. Nevertheless, she continued. "We've both come to the conclusion that time has somehow stopped for everything and everypony except us and apparently those monsters, right?" Vinyl nodded again. "But that's the problem... we haven't actually seen another pony, frozen or otherwise ever since we met... right?"
Vinyl took a moment to think back to when she was first saved by Octavia in the town where she found the other pony battling the giant shadow. Her eyes began to widen when she realized that Octavia was correct. Vinyl couldn't remember seeing a single pony in that town that was locked in time. To be precise, she hadn't seen another frozen pony ever since she first found herself on the dirt road.
Octavia took Vinyl's expression as a confirmation and continued. "Then there's the Manehattan incident where it became clear that both time AND space are being affected. It also occurred to me that both of us were knocked unconscious and both of us awoke on a road that led us straight to that town. After that we only ended up in that fake Manehattan because my bracelet started glowing and teleported us there."
Vinyl was about to say something but Octavia predicted this and put her hoof up to preemptively silence her. Lowering her hoof after a moment, she continued on. "Then, only after we defeated that shadow were we allowed to leave... We ended up back on the same dirt road which eventually led us to the ruins... more specifically, to the crystal that possessed you and ultimately caused you to get your magic back."
"So what are you saying?" Vinyl asked quickly before Octavia could silence her.
The gray pony sighed. "I'm saying that not only am I having serious doubts we're still in Equestria... or at least the Equestria that we know... but also that we aren't alone here... and I don't mean the shadows. Something with a will or a mind of it's own is controlling everything about wherever we actually are. It's been leading us along ever since we first came here, and I have reason to suspect that it's also what brought us here in the first place."
"So you mean whatever knocked us both out when we were sure we were still in Equestria is the same thing that brought us... wherever the hay this place is... and that it's in complete control of... everything?" Vinyl summed up the information she'd just been given, struggling to keep up with it all. Octavia nodded in response. "So... what does that mean then? If we can't stop it from making us go somewhere since it'll just change the world around, what do we do? And what about everypony else back in the real Equestria? Are they still frozen? Or are they alright you think?"
Octavia shook her head. "I don't know... there's still too many things I don't know... I can't make sense of what it's doing. For example, why would it bother taking your magic away, only to lead us to a place that ultimately ended in your magic being returned. Why would it bother sending us straight into those monsters that are trying to kill us, yet provide us with a way to fight them off... I don't understand any of it..."
There was a moment of thoughtful silence before Octavia looked up to the sky. Her eyes widened in horror at what greeted her. Somehow, after audibly swallowing her fear, she managed to direct Vinyl's attention to the skies and speak up. "Well... I think THAT confirms my suspicions about us not being alone." Vinyl had the same exact reaction as the pony beside her, swallowing audibly before nodding slowly.
In the night sky above, the moon that had previously greeted them whenever they looked up was absent. In it's place was a giant eye looking down at them, lids and all. After a brief moment it blinked and disappeared. Another moment later, the moon returned to it's previous state.
Octavia was right. They weren't alone. They hadn't been from the start.