Vinyl and Octavia Jump the Shark

by DoctorSpectrum


Chapter Four: Action

“I- I can’t believe it,” Vinyl gasped. “Of all the ponies to find here, in the Omega Zone’s laboratories, it has to be – him!”

 

“And I can’t believe how repetitive you’re getting,” Octavia grumbled. “Were you eating paint chips again whilst I wasn’t looking?”

 

“I plead the fifth,” Vinyl said. “But can you blame me for my sudden shock and outrage? It’s my mortal enemy!”

“Mortal enemy? That’s disappointing,” replied the pony to whom she was referring. “I was hoping you’d consider me something more along the lines of…future husband?”

 

A shudder ran along Vinyl’s spine. “Even if I didn’t love Octavia – hay, even if you were the only other pony in Equestria – I wouldn’t go near you in a million years, Neon Lights.”

 

“You say that now, but trust me, one evening with me and you’d be changing your tune,” Neon laughed. It was a cold, cocky thing; a laugh to boost Neon’s ego rather than actually finding any humour in the situation. Some of Vinyl’s hairs stood on end in response.

 

“What the hay are you doing here?” Vinyl asked defensively, trying to change the topic. “Shouldn’t you be in some seedy nightclub, hopelessly trying to buy mares drinks? I know you’re scummy enough that you’d fit right in with the ponies here, but I -” Vinyl stopped, a theory occurring to her. Neon Lights grinned. Vinyl knew that behind his dark glasses, his eyes were twinkling. “Oh, yuck, you’re working for Baron von Darkhoof?”

 

“Heh, close,” Neon replied. “I’m working with Darkhoof. We all are!”

 

“What? No we’re not,” Vinyl said. “Octavia and I are here to stop him. Unless…Octavia!” she exclaimed. “You’re the spy working for the evil organisation, not me!”

 

“What in the hay are you talking about, Vinyl?” Octavia asked.

 

“That ‘we’ clearly didn’t include you two,” said Neon. “By ‘we’, I of course mean – but wait, what am I saying? You’ll find out soon enough who the members of The Vinyl and Octavia Revenge Squad are!”

 

The room was silent for a few moments.

 

“That’s dumb,” said Vinyl bluntly.

 

“Mm-hmm,” agreed Octavia.

 

“Darling, I know it’s not our mission, but could we please beat up Neon Lights before we continue looking for the security card we need?” Vinyl asked. “I hadn’t realised it until about thirty seconds ago, but I really need to punch somepony. And by somepony I mean him.”

 

“Of course,” said Octavia. “I’d be happy to join i-” Her voice trailed off as she actually took in what Neon Lights was doing. There were several cables lying around on the floor, the type typically used as conductors and vectors for magical energy. The floor itself was covered in square panels which roughly made up a grid – pressure pads of some kind, perhaps?  Neon Lights noticed Octavia taking it all in and gave a smile that looked suspiciously similar to a leer.

 

“What’sa matter, babe?” he asked. “Something…catch your eye?”

 

“Neon Lights,” Octavia asked, her voice shaking slightly, “what are you doing here?”

 

“Take a guess, babe,” Neon Lights said, silent laughter on his lips even as he finished speaking.

 

“I…I suspect that you’re setting up some sort of pressure-sensitive bomb, judging by those panels?” Octavia said. “You somehow knew that Vinyl and I were here, so had those guards downstairs lure us up here to this – to your trap. The only problem is that you didn’t anticipate us getting here so swiftly.” Aside to Vinyl, she added, “See? I told you it was too convenient.”

 

“…There was a trap now?” Neon Lights said blankly, a look of genuine confusion upon his face.

 

“Actually, I think he’s setting up some sort of dance floor,” Vinyl explained to Octavia. She nudged one of the floor panels with a hoof. “If I’m not mistaken, once this is all set up, each of these will change colour in tune to music played in here.”

 

“…Oh,” said Octavia. “But why?”

 

“Showman’s gotta have a show, baby!” said Neon Lights. He trotted up to Octavia and put a hoof on her shoulder, which she immediately brushed off. “Just picture it – myself, dancing in all the best nightclubs in Equestria, picking up all the hottest mares – no fat chicks, of course- and how am I supposed to do that if I don’t practice my moves?”

 

“Wait…that’s what you’re doing here?” Octavia asked. “You’re setting up a dance floor so you can practice your presumably terrible dance moves?” She frowned. “Shouldn’t you be helping your silly little crew with whatever Baron von Darkhoof’s plan is?”

 

“Every time you think Neon Lights has hit a new low, he goes and surpasses his previous one,” said Vinyl sadly.

 

“Please, can you blame me? With a body this good?” Neon Lights asked. He attempted to, and failed, to flex his muscles.

 

“…I don’t even know who the other members of Baron von Darkhoof’s group are, but I already know that you’re the worst pony of them all,” commented Octavia.

 

“Neon Lights is definitely worst pony,” Vinyl said, nodding in agreement.

 

Neon Lights turned his head slightly, as though listening to something. Then, in a flash, he was suddenly before Vinyl through a strange sort of skip, which somehow knocked her to the ground. A blink of an eye later, and he was back where he had been a moment ago.

 

“Vinyl!” Octavia cried, kneeling down to her wife’s side as she processed what had happened. “Are you okay?”

 

“Octavia…I –” Vinyl coughed. She weakly reached out a hoof to try and reach Octavia’s face, but she couldn’t muster up the strength to, and faltered. “I’m fine,” Vinyl managed to weakly cough out.

 

“What?”

 

“But…his dance moves…” Vinyl coughed again. “They were…surprisingly good…”

 

“You know it, baby!” said Neon Lights, still grinning in victory. “From the Frozen North to Appleloosa, when they talk about good dancing, they’re talking about me!”

 

“Celestia’s sake, where are we going with this, Vinyl?” Octavia asked impatiently as she helped Vinyl to her hooves.

 

“There’s only one thing that we can do, Octavia,” Vinyl said, suddenly chipper again. “I’m going to have to challenge Neon Lights…to a dance-off!”

 

“Couldn’t we just…you know, leave?” Octavia asked. “And keep looking for that all-important security card?” Even as she finished speaking, Neon Lights connected some of his cables together, and a blinding lightshow erupted from some lights attached to the laboratory’s ceiling. At the same time, a throbbing beat sounded from below the floor panels which, as Vinyl had predicted, changed colour rapidly in accordance with the music. The overall result was that a schizophrenic, senses-deadening show cut off the last few of Octavia’s words.

 

“WHAT?” Vinyl shouted to Octavia.

 

“I SAID – OH, NEVER MIND!” Octavia returned. Turning around, she went to head out of the door the two ponies had entered through, only to bump her hoof into an empty wall when she reached for the handle. She shook her head and tried again, only to fail once more. It was hard to see where the door was with the constantly changing lights, she realised, squinting this time to see past them and to the immediate wall. Wait, did we even enter here? she wondered, looking along the wall for the familiar shape of the wall. Maybe it was further along here, and we turned…or maybe it was in the other direction…?

 

Poor Octavia, thought Vinyl sadly, watching her wife fumble her way along the wall, she’ll never get out of here on her own.  Turning to Neon Lights, who was laughing at Octavia, she said, “Alright, Neon, you ready for the fastest dance-off loss in your life?” She didn’t have to worry about Neon hearing her over all of the noise – ponies such as they two had learned to communicate in clubs using cues other than aural.

 

“I was born ready, baby!” Neon said. “I’ll make you a deal – you win, and I’ll give you that security card you two are looking for.”

 

“Ooh! Convenient!” said Vinyl. Then she frowned. “What happens if you win?”

 

“That’s even better for you – you get to go on a date with the one and only Neon Lights, baby!” said Neon.

 

Vinyl winced. Was it worth the risk, just for the card? Then she grinned, realising what a stupid question that was. She was Vinyl Scratch, he was Neon Lights. Did he even stand a chance? “You’re on!” Vinyl said.

 

“I was hoping you’d say that, hot stuff,” said Neon Lights. “But before we start, there’s a twist to this little set-up I’ve got going here.” Vinyl gestured for him to continue. “Once I connect these last two cables –” he levitated two cables into the air, but made a point of not letting them touch “- then my extra-elaborate danger routine will begin!”

 

“Your what now?” asked Vinyl.

 

“Keep an eye on the colours the panels flash,” Neon explained. “Blue panels are safe. Stepping on a yellow panel will open up a trapdoor to the shark tank. Stepping on an orange panel will open up a trapdoor to the pit of fire. Red panels will open up a trapdoor to the flaming shark tank of fire.”

 

“What do the purple panels do?” Vinyl asked as a panel near her briefly changed to magenta.

 

“They transmit light with a shorter wavelength than the other panels, but at a higher frequency,” said Neon Lights. “Any other questions before we start?”

 

“Why the hay do you have a set-up as elaborate as this for something as simple as practicing dancing?” asked Vinyl. Behind her, Octavia had finished one circuit of the room, and was beginning her next in search of the elusive door.

 

“That’s simple, filly,” said Neon Lights. “I’ve gotta practice like crazy, because I’m great at everything I do!” He lowered his sunglasses, gave a wink, then raised them back up to cover his eyes. “If you know what I mean.”

 

“Celestia,” sighed Vinyl. “Let’s get this the hay over with.”

 

“Exactly what I was thinking,” said Neon Lights, grinning. “Let’s get this party jumping!” With that, he used his telekinesis to connect the last two cables together, triggering his deadly dancefloor.

 

Originally, the highly competitive and occasionally lethal sport known as underground dancing, often hosted illegally in dance clubs, had only one rule – don’t tell anypony about dance club, because it sounds silly and embarrassing without proper context. As ambitious as the idea of having a sport with only one rule was, the originators eventually realised that they would have to add further rules, ostensibly so that they could determine once and for all what was and wasn’t legal in the sport, but in reality so they could work out what the hay the sport they’d invented actually was.

 

Due to the somewhat haphazard nature of the sport’s construction, many variants of underground dancing had evolved in the early days of it, each with their own rules and regulations. The most popular one, which Vinyl and Neon Lights had both correctly assumed they would be following, still held to the idea of a simple, all-encompassing rule – dance for longer than your opponent, and you win. The extra hazards given by the floor panels might speed things up, but other than that, this challenge was exactly the same as the many Vinyl had done in the past.

 

As Neon Lights connected the two cables together, Vinyl’s initial reaction was to leap in the air, it being both a stylish beginning and giving her some precious time to find a blue panel or purple panel to land on. To her luck, the panel directly below her glowed blue, and she landed upon it deftly. From there, Vinyl hopped to the side, landing upon another blue panel, and spinning on it as she waited for it to change. In spite of Neon’s additional twist to the game, Vinyl was fairly confident she could quickly work out the rhythm of the music, which would additionally help her to calculate the pattern the panels were changing in.

 

Even so, it was taking all of Vinyl’s concentration to both work out where to move next and to do so stylishly. She let out silent thanks to Celestia that Octavia was still wandering around the walls of the room, away from the dangerous panels.

 

Vinyl’s movement and dances consisted mostly of hops, steps, and jumps in time to the music, as it was a flexible style which both felt natural to her and allowed her to rapidly change her position if needed. For his part, Neon Lights was doing some sort of awkward jumping whilst thrusting his hooves into the air, as if pointing out where the lights were coming from to Vinyl. Vinyl didn’t really understand what constituted it as a dance, but she’d seen enough other ponies doing similar things to know it was an accepted move in underground dancing. Whilst doing this, Neon was constantly attempting to close in on Vinyl, who, savvy to his tricks, was able to do a circuit of the dance floor and stay ahead, dancing all the while.

 

Even so, somepony had to slip up at some point, and unfortunately, that pony was Vinyl. Planning to leap ahead, Vinyl found that she had made a mistake – the song changed as she was in mid-air, and with it, the panels Vinyl had anticipated would be safe to land on. Shifting her weight as best she could, Vinyl managed to crash to the dance floor just in front of the panels she had originally planned to land on. Unfortunately for Vinyl, the panels she had landed on were in the centre of the dance floor, a spot the unicorn had previously noted to be constantly filled with dangers, and so she immediately leapt back to another set of panels she anticipated would be safe, before the trap doors could open up. But then –

 

THWACK! Vinyl was immediately kicked in the jaw by Neon Lights, who had seen an opportunity and exploited it with the speed of thought. Whilst intentionally fighting with your opponents was technically against the rules of underground dancing, there were many loopholes that could be abused to get away with it, the most common being to claim that the other pony had accidentally gotten in the way of a particularly dramatic dance move. Vinyl had been hoping to avoid a physical brawl with Neon Lights if possible, but it looked as though that choice was out of her hooves now.

 

Climbing to her hooves – Vinyl had mercifully landed on the panels she had been aiming to anyway – Vinyl found Neon smirking at her as he switched up to a crotch thrust-based dance.

 

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding in the slightest as though he was, “I didn’t think you’d move back like that.”

 

“No worries,” replied Vinyl casually, “I just hope I don’t make the same stupid mistake.”

 

With that, the two continued their dance, both literally and metaphorically. Each would try to get closer to the other to attack them, whilst remaining ahead of the ever-changing lights. It was a game of cat and mouse, each pony circling around the centre of the dancefloor, still the most dangerous area, attempting to hit their foe and then retreat before they could get hurt in return. It was testament to both ponies’ dance skills and sense of rhythmic timing that they were for the most part able to avoid the wrongly-coloured dance panels, and that when they made a mistake were able to correct it before they could fall to an uncertain doom.

 

As it was, both ponies had nearly reached the fifteen-minute dancing mark without failing. Vinyl, exhausted though she was, felt proud of herself, knowing that she had never lasted this long in previous matches of underground dancing. It was slightly offset by the fact that normal underground dances generally required the participants to be far less cautious in the moves they made, owing to a distinct lack of booby-trapped floor panels, but it was still an achievement to be proud of.

 

Still, Vinyl had gotten in fewer hits to Neon Lights than he had to her. Whilst Vinyl had a black eye behind her glasses and a ringing headache – not helped by the loud music and flashing lights – Neon was only encumbered by a blood nose. Vinyl hated to admit it, but the chance of her winning this dance off was slipping out of her hooves as each second passed. Neon Lights was unlikely to give her the chance to win solely through endurance, and his crotch-thrusts limited the directions Vinyl could approach him from for physical violence. It was time for Vinyl to end this, before things got too out of hoof.

 

Although Neon’s crotch thrusts made him too dangerous to approach from the front, and attempting to come at him from the side or behind could take too long, Vinyl had already found a weakness in his dancing tactic. Leaping towards Neon Lights, Vinyl “accidentally” mistimed her leap and landed on a panel whilst it was projecting yellow light. Neon noticed immediately, and spun around, ready to kick her in the face once more as she leapt in his direction for a safe blue panel.

 

But Vinyl had been expecting that, knowing that if she telegraphed an opening for Neon, he wouldn’t be able to resist taking advantage of it. In his haste to take advantage of Vinyl, Neon Lights hadn’t seen what she was doing next. Rather than leaping to the blue panel between the two, Vinyl rolled to it, thus avoiding Neon’s kick, which had been aimed at an opponent who was descending from the air. Whilst still low to the ground, Vinyl swung her lower body forwards, knocking Neon to the ground from his precariously balanced front two hooves. Neon went crashing to the floor, having neither the reaction time nor the opportunity to rebalance himself. Vinyl followed up her attack with a leaping kick, driving Neon Lights’ head further into the glass panel, before leaping back onto her blue panel.

 

“Damn you, Vinyl,” muttered Neon as he staggered to his hooves. Vinyl winced. She had hoped that Neon would be knocked out by her attack, or at least weakened by it. Instead, it seemed only to have intensified his anger. Neon’s face was bloodier now: unbeknownst to Vinyl, she had broken his nose with her attack. His glasses had also been shattered, and it looked as though some shards of them were digging into his face. For the first time, Vinyl was seeing Neon Lights project an emotion other than cocky arrogance – now, she sensed only malice coming from him. “Loss of blood! My only weakness!” Neon spat at her. “How did you know?!”

 

“You want to keep going a few rounds, jerk?” Vinyl asked. She spread her hooves out and tensed her body, ready to leap into or away from trouble at the first sign of it. “Because I can keep this up all day,” she lied. “If you just want to give up now, I’m cool with that, but otherwise? Cut the chit-chat and stop stalling.”

 

Vinyl realised she had made a mistake in trying to intimidate Neon. Rather than lashing out to her words, he instead calmed down slightly, saying, “Vinyl, baby! You’d know I’d go with you all night if you could stand it, but I’ve gotta give you a break at some point, don’t I?” He chuckled. “And besides, why should I knock you down when you’re already so willing to do it yourself?”

 

Vinyl frowned, less sure of herself now. “What do you mean by –” Before Vinyl had finished talking, the panel below her split in two, opening up a passage to whatever danger lay below. Vinyl instinctively leapt upwards as she felt herself begin to fall, before the panels had opened up all of the way, but she had already been on a descent, and due to the unexpectedness of it all, hadn’t gotten as much power into her jump as she would have liked. Vinyl was hanging from the edge of the pit with her front hooves only, struggling to get a grip.

 

Neon Lights’ horn briefly glowed, and with it, the music and lights stopped. The panel wouldn’t be closing up any time soon. “So, what do you say, Vinyl?” Neon Lights asked, slowing making his way to Vinyl’s panel. She was rapidly losing her grip, readjusting it, and then starting the process all over again. “Agree to go out with me, and not only will I save you, but I’ll even let you join the Vinyl and Octavia Revenge Squad.”

 

“Why the hay would I agree to any of that?” panted Vinyl.

 

“The former? Because you know that I’m the best you’ll get for the rest of your life,” said Neon. “As for the latter, well, after our initial demonstration in Canterlot of Baron von Darkhoof’s grand plan, we’ll have it all – money, power, whatever we want. Who wouldn’t want that?”

 

Demonstration in Canterlot? Vinyl wondered, before getting distracted by more physical concerns.

 

“So, what do you say?” Neon asked, offering a hoof. He flashed a grin at her, which didn’t look as effective as it usually did when his face was covered in blood and tiny shards of glass.

 

“Sorry, old buddy old pal, but I’m gonna have to say no,” said Vinyl, finally finding something she could get a stronger grip on (the edge of the adjacent panel). “If I said yes, my wife would kill me.”

 

“Your w-”

 

Something grey and heavy slammed into Neon Lights, knocking him to the ground as it had in a nightclub oh so long ago. Vinyl couldn’t see what had happened, occupied as she was by climbing to safety, but once she was back on all four hooves, she found Octavia standing a short distance away from a groaning Neon Lights. Neon was lying on his back with a pool of blood around his head. Vinyl trusted Octavia not to have overdone it, but even so, seeing the initial amount of blood made her double-take.

 

“How are you doing, pretty lady?” Vinyl asked, cracking a grin as though it didn’t physically hurt her to do so.

 

“I think I’ve gone blind. Or deaf. Possibly both,” said Octavia, walking over so that she and Vinyl were standing right next to the ominous pit of doom. “How you and he manage to put up with that type of thing so often, I have no clue.” She leaned in and gave Vinyl a quick kiss on the lips.

 

Vinyl made a small movement that might have been a shrug, or possibly a small shiver of delight at Octavia’s kiss. “Being too stupid to know better, I guess?” she said. “I know for a fact that the too stupid bit applies to Neon over there. Speaking of…” Vinyl turned away from Octavia and to Neon, who was no longer lying on the floor where Vinyl had expected him to be. Instead, he was standing directly in Vinyl’s face.

 

“…Hello?” said a confused Vinyl after a moment.

 

Silently, Neon Lights pushed Vinyl and Octavia forwards, using a hoof for each, into the still-open floor panel. The two disappeared into the darkness within moments, their shouts of surprise being the only things to indicate that they had ever been there.

 

“Idiots,” said Neon Lights.