//------------------------------//
// Chapter Five: New Ways to Live 
// Story: Vinyl and Octavia Jump the Shark 
// by DoctorSpectrum 
//------------------------------//


The first thing Vinyl noticed was the heat.


 


The island that the CHIELD research station was on – what did her dad call it? The Omega Zone? – had a light snowfall outside, so naturally, the research station was fairly cold. There hadn’t been much in the way of central heating so far – whether because it hadn’t been worth the expenditure for the number of ponies there or because they didn’t care wasn’t apparent – but even if there had been, the room which Vinyl and Octavia were falling into from the chute they’d fallen down would have felt swelteringly hot. The cause of the heat was apparent – as Neon Lights had promised, the two were falling towards a flaming tank of fire, hopefully without the sharks in it as he had claimed.


 


The room itself was much fairly large, so as to be able to contain the rounded tank, which had a diameter of around twenty metres. Whatever this room had been before Neon Lights converted it for his side project – Vinyl assumed that Neon Lights had been the one to add the tank; if it was CHIELD-related that raised more questions than she wanted to think about – wasn’t apparent.






Vinyl and Octavia both landed in the tank a few seconds after initially falling into the room, each creating a large SPLASSSSSHHHH!! as they landed. The impact surprised Vinyl, as did the fact that she was falling into water. Landing in water was much harder than Vinyl recalled; it completely knocked what little air she had in her lungs out. After a few stunned moments, Vinyl’s instincts kicked in, and she started awkwardly thrashing her way to the surface, correctly guessing the direction she had fallen from. Vinyl had her eyes closed – she hated opening her eyes underwater – and as she swam, she hoped that she wasn’t going to surface in a fiery inferno.


 


All was well, though, and before her lungs gave out, Vinyl had broken the surface of the tank, moments after Octavia did the same. Gasping, Vinyl had a look around her, attempting to get her bearings. Although the two were in water, the fire they had seen from the air wasn’t an illusion or any sort of similar trickery: patches of oil floated every few metres, and they were each on fire. Around the two, it was hard to breathe; the fire may not have been affecting the heat of the water much, but it was very much affecting the air quality.


 


“Vinyl!” choked out Octavia, seeing her wife surface next to her.


 


“Oc-Octavia!” replied Vinyl similarly. The two had surfaced next to each other – Vinyl could feel small distortions in the water’s current as Octavia treaded water – and Vinyl very much wanted to hug Octavia, but it was too impractical at the moment. “What do we do? The tank’s on fire!”


 


“There’s no sense in trying to make our way to the perimeter,” said Octavia, briefly pointing a hoof. Surrounding the edge of the tank was a large mesh-wire fence – impossible to climb over.  “We’re going to have to see whether there’s any way to get out of here through the tank.”


 


Vinyl briefly dipped her head under the water before replying to Octavia – it was getting much too hot and dry for her liking. “Is that even likely?” she asked. She flicked her head to the side as she talked in an attempt to get her mane out of her eyes.


 


Octavia sighed. “Do we have a choice?” she said. Before Vinyl could reply to the rhetorical question, Octavia added, “Take a deep breath and let us have a better look around. We shall see what we can find.”


 


Vinyl did as her wife bade, and then ducked her head under the water once more. This time, she opened her eyes. It was something she hated having to do, sure, but it was a necessity to finding a way out of the deadly trap the two were in. Vinyl’s iconic purple glasses had fallen off at some point whilst the two ponies were falling through the air, so she didn’t have to worry about them affecting her visibility.


 


Kicking her way through the water, Vinyl looked out for an exit, as Octavia had requested. Whatever the hay that looked like. What was Octavia expecting her to find? Some giant neon lights – Vinyl shuddered internally – pointing to a convenient way out? Still, she had better try. Vinyl turned her head to the right, hoping that the convenient sign existed and was there, and then immediately bumped into a shark.


 


It was a pretty dumb thing to do.


 


Looking to see what she had bumped into, it took Vinyl a moment to realise that the thing was something else underwater, as opposed to a structural part of the tank. Vinyl frowned, the shark appearing blurred and indistinct through the water. Why had Octavia emphasised the importance of finding an exit, only to then gently swim through the water? And when did Octavia become so elongated and fish-like?


 


Squinting slightly, Vinyl finally noticed what she had actually crashed into. Her fear immediately kicked into overdrive, and she kicked upwards rapidly whilst also attempting not to aggravate the shark – just as long as she got away from it, she would be happy.


 


For its part, the shark was wondering what the hay had just bumped into it and then left. Sharks have a blind spot in front of their nose, and this one had been wandering fairly aimlessly around the tank before something white and fluffy crashed into it. Still, with nothing in its way anymore, the shark was happy to continue aimlessly swimming through the tank, until it detected the scent of blood or found something worth eating.


 


Vinyl’s head broke the surface once more. Her heart was beating furiously, and she was gasping for air, her fear having quickly used up her oxygen. She kicked back slightly, certain that if she stayed in the same spot, a shark would emerge from the depths and eat one of her delicious, tantalising legs. (Vinyl wasn’t entirely sure what the word tantalising meant, but she was pretty sure that if it was something appealing, it applied to her legs). Vinyl moved around constantly, barely even noticing the fires any more. The fire was a mundane, knowable danger; one that could be avoided by being smart and paying attention. But the sharks, to Vinyl, were deadly monsters that could strike from anywhere, at any time, without warning. Each ripple in the water, or bubble that floated to the surface, caused Vinyl to flinch.


 


Vinyl managed to find her way to one of the walls of the tank, and breathed a sigh of relief. There were fewer directions for the sharks to attack her from now, and she was even lucky to be relatively distant from the nearest fire. Now, Vinyl just needed Octavia to break the surface, and – hang on a moment, how long had the Earth pony been underwater for now? It had to be at least a minute, surely? Could Octavia hold her breath that long?


 


“Octavia!” called out Vinyl, hoping for a response. None came. “Octavia!” Vinyl repeated. “Where are you?!” There was still nothing. No beautiful head breaking the surface of the water, nor slowly paddling over from behind a fire which had previously masked its presence. With each second that passed without a sign of Octavia, the possibility of her drowning – or worse, being eaten by sharks – increased, a fact which Vinyl realised and then immediately attempted to ignore.


 


Vinyl had been attempting to stay calm since surfacing, but with no sign of Octavia anywhere, she was starting to get tense. “Okay, okay…” Vinyl muttered to herself. “This is fine. This is cool, it’s all fine. Just stick your head in the water, see her swimming towards you, then surface. Easy-peasy.” Before she could second-guess herself, Vinyl stuck her head beneath the surface, hoping to see her wife nearby.


 


Wherever Octavia – or possibly, her lifeless body – was, it wasn’t anywhere visible to Vinyl. There were, however, three sharks swimming nearby. One of them turned to her, unintentionally flashing the unicorn a toothy grin.


 


For Vinyl, it was the final straw. Her panic rose once more, higher than before.  The unicorn found herself attempting to grip the fence around the tank, attempting to rip it open with her telekinesis, anything to create an exit and get out of there. How the hay did she get into this situation?! She was going to die in the Omega Zone, wasn’t she?


 


Vinyl flinched as she heard the sound of something breaking the surface of the water. “Don’t eat me!” squealed Vinyl instinctively, now throwing herself at the fence in the hopes that she could somehow magically grip it with her hooves. “I’m stringy!”


 


“Vinyl? What are you talking about? And what are you doing over there?”


 


After splashing down into the water, Vinyl turned around to see one of the best sights of her life – Octavia, as wet as anything, with her head sticking out of the water, over where Vinyl had initially risen.


 


“Octavia!” Vinyl cried, breaking several freestyle speed records as she made her way over to Octavia. “I was – I thought you – I – I-” She coughed and choked, unable to continue as the heat got the better of her.


 


“It’s alright, I’m fine,” said Octavia, feeling slightly confused but nevertheless pleased to see that her mere presence was cheering up her wife. “I think I’ve found an exit – how about you? Did you find anything?”


 


“Just the promise of an untimely and early death,” said Vinyl darkly.


 


Octavia raised an eyebrow but said nothing in response to the odd comment. Instead, she said, “How long can you hold your breath? I found a drain cover of sorts that I think might lead somewhere, but it’s on the bottom of the tank. I can hold mine for about two minutes…”


 


Nowhere near that long, thought Vinyl. “I think I’m pretty similar,” she lied. “What do we need to do?”


 


“The cover doesn’t look too heavy – at least, not for me – but I can’t get a hold of it when it’s in the floor of the tank as it is now,” Octavia explained. “If you can get an edge up with your telekinesis, I should be able to get it the rest of the way, and then we can see where it leads.” She wiped some of the sweat from her forehead – the fires felt like they were hotter than before. “Take a deep breath, then follow me.”


 


“Wait!” Vinyl exclaimed. “We need to – there’s sharks down there.” Octavia nodded, evidently having seen them herself. And dealt with them a lot better than I did, thought Vinyl bitterly. “What should we do about them?”


 


Octavia shrugged as best she could whilst treading water, which wasn’t very. “Avoid them? Unless they smell blood, I don’t think they’ll pay too much attention to us.” Vinyl opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it. The sharks were just something she would have to not think about – just pretend that they weren’t better swimmers than her, with sharp, multiple rows of teeth…


 


“Ready?” Octavia asked.






“Yeah,” said Vinyl. As ready as I’ll ever be. Both ponies took deep breaths, and then descended below the surface.


 


As Octavia had said, the drain cover was on the bottom of the tank, so both ponies headed directly down. Once more, Vinyl desperately wanted to close her eyes – both because the water hurt her eyes and so she wouldn’t see any of the sharks on the way down – but resisted the urge to do so. How did Octavia manage to do it?


 


Soon enough, the ponies had reached the bottom of the tank, and sure enough, as Octavia had said, there was a drain cover. Vinyl looked around as best she could in the water – surely it wasn’t this easy? Surely the sharks had noticed them, or the drain cover was sealed with cement, or something similar? But no, the sharks were swimming around as aimlessly as ever, and Vinyl was able to surround the drain cover with her telekinetic field as easily as if she were preparing to levitate a coin into the air.


 


Lifting the drain cover, however – that was another matter entirely. The entire thing wasn’t too thick, but it was relatively large, and with several hundred litres of water on top of it, lifting it was hardly a walk in the park. The drain cover didn’t look like it was moving, aside from slight budges now and then which didn’t amount to anything. Vinyl was straining, and it showed. She wanted to resurface, get another breath of air, and then try again, but doing that felt like admitting that she had screwed up and made a mistake.





Brute force wasn’t working. Perhaps finesse would. Vinyl closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of the drain cover in her telekinetic field. Gently at first, but increasing rapidly, she applied force to a tiny section of the drain cover close to her. She focused all of her attention and concentration on that tiny spot, willing her magic to translate that concentration into physical force. It wasn’t easy – her head was throbbing, her lungs felt like they were about to burst, and her heart was rapidly pounding inside her chest. But she had to make it work – she must.


 


Vinyl opened her eyes to see how she was doing, and to her surprise, the drain cover was lifted open enough for Octavia to put a hoof under it and continue the job. Reinvigorated by her progress, Vinyl let out a final mental push to the field, and with Octavia’s assistance, was able to finally lift the drain cover off. Octavia briefly winced as she did so.






It was a good thing that they had done so, as Vinyl had just been forced to let out the air she’d been holding in her lungs all of this time. She was about to enter the drain, but Octavia interrupted her with a hoof, and pointed upwards, towards the surface. Get some air first. Vinyl’s weak lung capacity hadn’t escaped Octavia, and who knew how long the tunnel the drain opened to would go for?


 


Vinyl wanted to go to the surface, she really wanted to. But just as Octavia had noticed her letting out a breath, so too had she noticed something about Octavia, something the Earth pony herself probably hadn’t noticed. She pointed to Octavia’s hoof, the one aimed upwards.


 


A small, brownish-red liquid was floating from an open cut on Octavia’s hoof, and dissipating into the water.


 


A moment later, a shark swam down, attracted by the blood. Vinyl leapt forwards as best she could whilst underwater – she needed to get Octavia down, punch the shark, whatever she could – but she was too slow. She wanted to scream as she watched, helplessly, as the shark bit into her wife, but her lungs were empty. Octavia certainly screamed, the instinct overriding her inclination to hold her breath. It didn’t sound like a scream, of course, underwater as it was, but that didn’t matter one bit to Vinyl, or Octavia for that matter. Octavia was in pain, and she couldn’t stop it. Vinyl reached out a hoof, wanting – praying – that Octavia would reach out and grab it–


 


- and she did, kicking off and not only grabbing Vinyl’s hoof, but managing to somehow direct the two of them into the drain they had intended to swim into. There was a current in it which helped to push the two of them along it, but Vinyl barely noticed. Her head was throbbing, and her vision was full of black spots. What little cognitive function she had didn’t care about how they were getting out of this situation, just that they were somehow heading somewhere she could help Octavia.


 


Fortunately for the two ponies, the pipe they were travelling through was short, and better yet, the water that flowed from it fell directly from the pipe into another drain via the magic of gravity. The downside to this was that as unprepared for this as they were, the duo emerged from the pipe, fell a few metres through the air, and then both crashed heavily on top of another drain cover which the water was going through. It hurt, and wasn’t the optimal condition for an oxygen-deprived unicorn and wounded Earth pony to be in, but at least they had done it.


 


They had escaped from the tank.


 


For a few moments, Vinyl just lay there on her side, breathing in precious oxygen. The black spots were clearing, and she was no longer feeling light-headed- no, wait, make that feeling less light-headed, Vinyl realised, as she attempted to stand up only to immediately collapse back down to the ground, a wave of dizziness overtaking her. Still, a little thing like possible loss of cognitive abilities wasn’t much to dissuade Vinyl, and so she forced herself upwards again, this time pressing a hoof against a nearby wall to maintain her balance.





“Octavia,” Vinyl croaked, “are you alright?” She took a few cautious steps forwards, closer to the other mare. Octavia had landed face-first to the ground, and was attempting to stand up.


 


“I’m – I’m alright,” Octavia said, shakily accepting the hoof that Vinyl offered her. “The wound hurts like blazes, but I don’t think it’s too deep. The shark mostly took me by surprise.” Her voice trailed off at the end, and for a few moments she merely stared at nothing, before blinking and shaking her head slightly. “Although I may not be up to much physical activity for a short while.”


 


“Heh. Join the club,” said Vinyl. The two of them were in some sort of warehouse area, with a shallow pool of water nearby, leading out into a system of caves. What was in those caves was unknown, but judging by the distance the two ponies had fallen from their previous level, they were underneath the Omega Zone. Possibly small boats, or maybe submarines, surreptitiously docked nearby to deliver goods. There were some large crates about the concrete floor, and if the two ponies listened carefully, they could hear the hoofsteps of patrolling guards.


 


“How did you get the cut?” Vinyl asked quietly as the two ponies carefully moved around, Vinyl looking around for guards as they did so. “I didn’t notice it earlier, and I don’t think the sharks did, either.”


 


“I think it was the grate,” said Octavia, equally quiet. “I felt a sharp bit of pain as I lifted it, but dismissed it. There must have been a jagged outcrop, or something similar, which created the wound. How are you feeling?”


 


“Still a little light-headed,” admitted Vinyl, “but it’s mostly gone now. Though if we’d stayed underwater for a bit longer…” She didn’t finish the thought, but it was obvious to both ponies what she was hinting at.


 


The two ponies fell silent for the next few minutes, not wishing to do anything to attract undue attention as they slowly, cautiously, crept around the room. But unfortunately for the duo, luck was not with them today – edging around a crate to avoid one guard, and heading towards what Vinyl felt confident was an exit, the two ponies stumbled right into the path of another patrolling guard.


 


“What the -?” the guard exclaimed, before his training took over and he shot a bolt at Vinyl. But the unicorn was too quick, and she had already started galloping away, past another crate and out of sight, with Octavia right on her tail. Vinyl turned a corner, confident that she and Octavia could make it to the door behind the guard as he entered the maze of crates to look for them, but…


 


“Aha!”


 


…Vinyl had led herself and Octavia right into another guard. She wanted to dash towards the exit – it was so close! – and almost made a move for it, but the guard was in-between her and it. For a moment Vinyl stood there, agonising over the decision – go for the door, or duck back into the crates? – and for a moment it looked as though that split moment of hesitation was going to cost Vinyl.


 


Fortunately, Vinyl’s companion was no idiot, as before the guard had time to act on his opportunity, Octavia had grabbed Vinyl’s hoof – “This way!” – and pulled the two of them towards a closer door.


 


Reacting from there, Vinyl activated her magic, targeted the doorknob, and opened the door.


 


Or that was what she had tried to do. Rather than smoothly depressing, the door handle started to turn, and then stopped. Simultaneously, the magical field it had been surrounded in dissipated.


 


Vinyl started. That wasn’t what she had intended to do. A bolt whizzed past her shoulder and stuck into the door, as she tried to comprehend what went wrong. Whether the bolt had missed her or was a warning shot, Vinyl was unsure. Either way, she didn’t want to stick around for the next shot. Activating her magic once more, Vinyl targeted the door knob and was successful in opening the door this time. She and Octavia ducked inside and slammed the door behind them, Vinyl thinking to lock it after they did so. Once she had done that, Octavia barricaded the door using a desk beside it right away.


 


The two ponies stood there for a few moments, leaning against the desk to reinforce it. They heard a few more bolts hit the door, and what felt like somepony attempt to kick the door open, but it remained closed. Not that that stopped the two ponies from staying where they were.


 


“I think this is the part,” Vinyl finally said, “where we turn around to find out that the room we’ve just ducked into to escape a bunch of guards is full of an even larger group of guards, who are standing there watching us silently.”


 


Neither she nor Octavia moved from their position.






“Well?” Vinyl asked. “Aren’t you going to check?”


 


“If I do that, won’t they make their presence known?” Octavia pointed out. “It makes more sense for us to stay here against the door.”


 


“Good point,” said Vinyl.


 


Two seconds passed.


 


“Right, I’m bored,” said Vinyl, and relaxed. Examining the room the two were holed up in, Vinyl was pleased to see that her prediction was wrong, and the room the two had actually decided to hole up in was a small office. There was nothing fancy about it; aside from the desk helping to keep the door shut, there wasn’t much else in it. Just a chair, knocked over and lying on its side, a filing cabinet which presumably contained out-of-date documents, and –


 


“Hey Octavia!” said Vinyl, sitting down in such a manner that the area immediately behind her couldn’t be seen, “do you want me to show you the cool thing I found, or the really cool thing I found?”


 


“I would have thought that the answer to that question was obvious: the really cool thing,” said Octavia. Looking away from the door to Vinyl, she reluctantly stopped leaning against the desk, and, after a moment of watching the door to ensure that nothing happened, sat down. “Well? What is it?”


 


“Check it out!” said Vinyl, levitating a piece of paper from behind her. “I found a map!”


 


“Excellent!” said Octavia, plucking it out of the air. “We’ve fallen down quite a bit from the first floor, so hopefully we shouldn’t be too far from…” Her voice trailed off as she actually examined the map.


 


“…Octavia?” Vinyl asked, realising that her wife’s silence wasn’t due to deep concentration, but being stunned. “Octavia, is everything alright?”


 


“I…think so?” Octavia replied after a moment of hesitation. “Vinyl, am I reading this right?” She turned the map over and showed it to the unicorn. “We are here, right?”


 


“Yeah, of course,” said Vinyl. “We were in this laboratory here with Neon Lights, on the first floor,” she began, tracing a path with her hoof, “we fell through to the tank in this big room below it here, on the ground floor, and then we fell through that to this warehouse, here on the second fl-”. Vinyl stopped, realising the same thing Octavia had. She retraced the path with her hoof another few times and came to the same conclusion each time. “But that’s – how in the -?”


 


“Maybe CHIELD performed experiments in this building involving non-Euclidean space?” Octavia suggested.


 


“Whatever,” said Vinyl, grabbing the map and throwing it over her shoulder, “that was useless. Wanna see the other cool thing I found?” Without waiting for a reply, she revealed it. “Ta-da! It’s a first-aid kit!” She grinned slyly. “How do you feel about playing doctor?”


 


“Seeing as how we’re currently barricaded within a small office with a group of guards outside attempting to break it, I’m going to assume you mean in the strictly medical sense,” Octavia replied. As though to emphasise her point, there was a thud against the door as the guards made another attempt to break in. “In which case, yes, that sounds fantastic!”


 


“Bah!” said Vinyl jokingly. “If right now isn’t romantic enough for you to get it on with me, then when is?!” As she spoke, Octavia turned her back to Vinyl, revealing the wound the shark had given her. Vinyl gave a low whistle. Octavia had been half-right – the wound wasn’t too deep, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t bleeding. The shark’s teeth had torn a rough gash into Octavia’s back, exposing raw flesh to the open air. If Octavia had been Vinyl’s worst enemy, she would have nevertheless respected the Earth pony for managing to walk – hay, for managing to gallop – with a wound like that and failing to complain.


 


Opening up the medical kit, Vinyl was pleased to see that even with her limited medical knowledge and skill, there was enough in there for her to assist Octavia. Levitating a bottle of disinfectant into the air, alongside some cotton wool, Vinyl said, “Okay, I’m going to clean the wound first. I’ll try to do this best I can, but it’ll probably sting a bit.” She had a quick look at the bottle of disinfectant. NEW! EXTRA PAINFUL VARIANT! “Or, um, maybe a lot?”


 


“It’s okay,” said Octavia. “The sooner you get it done, the better.” She lay down on her stomach and gritted her teeth in anticipation.


 


“Okay. Okay,” muttered Vinyl to herself. She dabbed some cotton wool into the disinfectant. “Okay,” she repeated before cautiously levitating the cotton wool to Octavia’s back. Octavia let in a sharp gasp and flinched slightly. “You alright?” Vinyl asked.


 


“F-fine,” said Octavia. “It just took me by surprise a bit.”


 


“Oh. Right,” said Vinyl, before continuing to apply the disinfectant as best she could. It was a tricky thing – she wanted to apply it to Octavia’s wound as best she could, but she also had to be careful not to get any cotton wool stuck in the wound. Vinyl was also acutely aware of how much pain she was unintentionally causing Octavia and was trying her best to reduce it, even though the grey mare hid it well.


 


For the next few minutes, Vinyl applied the disinfectant, unaware that in attempting to stop Octavia’s wound from getting infected, she had applied more than twice the disinfectant she needed to. The two were silent during the entire process, aside from the odd intake of air from Octavia, which was regularly followed up by a “Sorry,” from Vinyl each time.


 


After Vinyl was convinced that Octavia’s wound wasn’t going to get infected, she reached into the first aid kit for the next item she needed. “So…I, um, think I’m just going to put a pad or two over the wound to absorb the bleeding and keep it from being exposed, and then wrap it all up with some bandages. Unless you’ve got any better ideas?”


 


“No, that sounds fine to me,” said Octavia.


 


“Cool,” said Vinyl. “I guess that means the painful bit’s over – a-at least, I think it is,” she hastily added, scanning the bandages to make sure that they weren’t also a painful variant.


 


“I’m sure that you shall do your best regardless,” said Octavia. “I’m ready when you are, by the way.”


 


“Sure. Just trying to find out where the other damn end of this bandage is…” Vinyl muttered to herself. “There.” Vinyl placed some gauze on Octavia’s back over her wound, attempting to keep it as symmetrical as possible so that she could wrap it all up neatly. After confirming that they wouldn’t fall off easily, she started wrapping around Octavia, going around from her stomach to her back and circling again.


 


Vinyl was concentrating on doing a good job, and had expected Octavia to stay patiently quiet as she had during the disinfectant process, so she was surprised when Octavia suddenly commented, “You seem fairly at ease with this. Did you ever have to do this at home? To your father?”


 


The question took Vinyl aback slightly, and she paused in her task as she contemplated it. “Dad…? Nah, not that I can ever think of.” She resumed wrapping the bandages around Octavia. “I mean, sometimes I noticed that he’d gained some new injuries when he got home, but it didn’t really mean anything, y’know? He always said he got them while he was exploring some new locale, and I… I guess that’s true, in a sense.”


 


Octavia heard the bitterness in her lover’s voice. “Does it…disturb you?” she asked, treading carefully. “Knowing now what he was doing all of those years?”


 


Vinyl paused, and took a deep breath. She seemed to be thinking how to word her response carefully. “Octavia,” she finally said, “Octavia, let me tell you a story.”


 


“There was once a very young, and very small filly. She was very enthusiastic, and very excited by new things, and was very happy with the life she had. She grew up only having a father to love her, but that didn’t bother her – she loved him very much and didn’t see the need for another parent in her life.”


 


“What happened to that filly’s mother?” Octavia asked, gently.


 


“She was killed by a falling chandelier at the opera,” said Vinyl casually.


 


“What?!” Octavia exclaimed. “But she – I mean, you – I thought –”


 


“Octavia?” interrupted Vinyl. “I’m telling the story now. Please save your questions for the end.”


 


“R-right,” said Octavia, wondering why she had never heard any of this from Vinyl before. Perhaps the appearance of her father was causing her to open up more than she previously had. “Please, continue.”


 


“So like I said, this filly, she grew up with just her dad loving her,” said Vinyl. “Unfortunately, while she loved her dad and he loved her, there was a catch – he was often gone from her home, and so that filly had to learn to grow up fast. Being alone often, at a young age like that? The filly quickly stopped taking many things seriously, and became very light-hearted. It was her shield against the world, her way to cope with things. So what if her dad wasn’t home the night he said he would be and it was boiled cockroaches for dinner again? It’s all just a big joke, right? It can’t hurt you if it never meant anything in the first place.”


 


Octavia was still facing the door, with her back exposed to Vinyl, so she couldn’t see the unicorn’s expression, but she could picture it – a downcast look, not wishing to reveal herself to the world. A single, solitary tear rolling down her cheek, perhaps?


 


“Anyway, many years passed, and the filly grew older, still as light-hearted and jokey as ever. Not a single pony realised how much she was hurting on the inside, how much she just wanted somepony to hug her and tell her, ‘It’s alright – you may feel alone, but you’re not. You have plenty of ponies who love you, even if they can’t always show it.’ She felt that constantly, but never more than the day she turned seventeen.” Vinyl cleared her throat slightly, and then continued.


 


“School that day was fairly ordinary for the filly – she was the class clown and drew enough attention to herself, so most ponies knew that it was her birthday. It was as hollow as the year before, of course – so what if somepony says ‘Happy birthday’ to you in the hall? That doesn’t make the day automatically amazing. That doesn’t fix the many problems that make up your life.


 


“But she had expected all of that. That wasn’t the disappointing part of her birthday – it was after school, when she got home, that was. Her dad had promised her he’d be there for his birthday, as he did every year. And every year, he always made it – except this one.


 


“The filly couldn’t take it anymore. She dropped her saddlebag on the doorstep and ran back into the city, back into Manehattan, to confront him about it. She didn’t care that she should have been home, making a cockroach cake for her birthday – she just wanted to see her dad.


 


“It took her over four hours, looking for the building he was supposed to be at. She’d been there once or twice, but that was when she was younger. She barely remembered it now, but that didn’t matter – she had to find her dad. And then, at last, when she thought she’d never find it and she would have to return home, she spotted it. Bursting through the front door of the lawyer’s office –”


 


“Wait, lawyer’s office?” Octavia interrupted. “But I thought that you had thought your father was –”


 


“- she was surprised to find it abandoned,” Vinyl continued, ignoring Octavia. “It was strange – there should have been some ponies working late at this time. But it was completely empty. Looking around, the filly found only one piece of evidence – at her father’s desk, a dagger, twisted and blood-stained, lay there. There was no clue as to who may have put it there, nor, mysteriously, that anypony had ever worked at that desk,” Vinyl finished proudly. She sat back down on the carpet.


 


“…Vinyl?” Octavia asked.


 


“Yes, beautiful?”


 


“What the bloody hay was the point of that?” Octavia asked.


 


“I said I’d tell you a story, didn’t I?” Vinyl asked. “It’s one that I’ve been jotting down ideas for – I’m thinking of making it a sort of horror-noir story? Most of that’s just the backstory – I think I’ll start it out at the young filly’s birthday and reveal the other stuff later. What did you think?” At some point during the story, Vinyl had stopping wrapping Octavia’s bandages as she had continued to get more and more engrossed in her story, but with it over now, she went back to bandaging Octavia up.


 


“I think that you’re an idiot,” said Octavia.


 


“Is that all?” Vinyl asked, mischievously.


 


“I also think that I love you,” added the Earth pony. Vinyl grinned. “And that you’re avoiding my original question.” The grin disappeared. “Vinyl…does your father lying to you about what he was doing for many years hurt you? Please be honest.”


 


“I…” Vinyl stopped wrapping again. This time there was a larger gap before she answered. “Maybe…? Being an explorer, being a CHIELD agent – what’s the difference? He could’ve died doing either, right?”


 


“That’s true,” Octavia said, glad to see that with some thought from the initial revelation, Vinyl didn’t appear to be agonising over it. “And between the two, CHIELD agent is probably the nicer occupation to risk one’s life in – with that, he was saving Equestria… well, if not daily, then certainly periodically.”


 


“Yeah,” agreed Vinyl. “…But at the same time, if he had been an explorer, then he wouldn’t have faked his death, would he?”


 


Octavia turned to face Vinyl, concern for her wife welling up in her chest. “Vinyl? What do you mean by that?”


 


“Well, it’s just that…” Vinyl paused, trying to work out how to explain her thoughts coherently. The bandages were completely forgotten by this stage; not that either pony cared. “Dad’s spent the past few years pretending to be dead so that he could do some more missions for CHIELD, yeah? What…what was so important about those missions that only he could do them? Why couldn’t he have just…just lived, and quit CHIELD? Don’t tell me that they couldn’t have gotten some other pony to do whatever his missions were; that’s ridiculous.”


 


“Well, maybe he…” Octavia faltered. Thinking it over, it was odd that Spyglass had chosen to go and do more missions for CHIELD after cheating death rather than spend his remaining time with his daughter and whomever else was important to him. “Maybe he’s a very dutiful patriot?” Octavia suggested weakly.


 


“That’s the best I could come up with,” Vinyl agreed, “but…why does that make it his job? He’d been in CHIELD for years earlier; why couldn’t he just move on? Quit the job, end his series of missions, and just…stop living that life. Find a new way to live, one that didn’t revolve around his job. There’s nothing wrong with ending something when it’s appropriate.”


 


“Vinyl, I’m sure his life didn’t revolve around his job,” said Octavia. Sensing it was needed, Octavia gave Vinyl a hug, which the unicorn hesitantly returned. (She didn’t realised that she’d accidentally touched Octavia’s still-unbandaged back with a hoof, making Octavia bite her tongue to stop herself from flinching and ruining the moment).


 


“I…I’d like to believe that,” said Vinyl quietly. “You’re probably right, and I’m just being my usual dumb self, but…I still wish that he had just quit at some point. What, did he think there was a prize for doing the most missions for CHIELD or something?” Feeling a little better, Vinyl exited the hug, and resumed bandaging up Octavia’s back.


 


“Perhaps he was just glad to help ponies by working for CHIELD?” Octavia suggested. “Making other ponies happy is a good motivation to continue, and even if they were unaware of his missions, I’m sure that he would have been happy to go on.”


 


“Yeah, but…he doesn’t need to do that anymore,” Vinyl said. “He can finish it all, quit CHIELD now. Other ponies can do his job; there’s probably lots of other ponies in CHIELD who are agents as good as – if not better – than Dad. It’s just…dumb to continue for the sake of continuing. I mean, do you think we’ll continue on like this just because we’re doing this one mission? Vinyl and Octavia, agents of CHIELD?”


 


Octavia chuckled. “No, that would be quite silly,” she said. “As a matter of fact, I – can I tell you something odd?”


 


“Sure,” said Vinyl. She tied a knot in the bandages, then added, “The bandages are done, by the way. There was also some balm or something that supposedly helps heal cuts faster that I stuck on – dunno if it’ll work but here’s hoping it does.” With her job done, she walked over to a wall and sat down, her back leaning against the wall. She had recovered from the shark tank’s effects on her by now, but she felt emotionally drained nevertheless.


 


“Thank you,” said Octavia. After a quick test to ensure that the bandages wouldn’t fall off, Octavia went over by Vinyl and laid her head upon Vinyl’s chest. The unicorn began stroking Octavia’s mane softly once she had done so.


 


“So?” Vinyl asked after a few moments of the two ponies basking in the pleasant situation. “What’s this odd thing you wanna tell me?”


 


“I’m…I’m somewhat sick of these never-ending adventures we always seem to get caught up in,” Octavia admitted. “At first, when it was just every so often, they were actually nice – they were a welcome break from mundane life. But...now, they just come out of nowhere and interrupt us just as we’re settling down from the previous adventure. And you have to admit, the quality of our adventures is diminishing with each new one.”


 


Vinyl nodded in agreement. “Yeah, the old days were a lot more fun – remember when we used to just do silly things like move in together and fight ninjas?...Or is it ninja?”


 


“Fighting ninja was never fun, Vinyl,” said Octavia, deadpan.


 


“Details, details,” said Vinyl dismissively, waving a hoof. “But yeah…I’ve kinda been thinking something similar myself. I think our honeymoon might have been the most free time we’ve had in ages, and that was barely a few weeks! I’m…I’m kinda ready to end this stage of our life, and just…find a new way to live.” Vinyl frowned. “Is that a thing? Like a mid-life crisis, but it’s a wacky adventure stage of life?”


 


Octavia snickered. “If it is, I think we may hold the record for it occupying the largest amount of time in our lives,” she said. “But how will we –”


 


A loud bang from the door interrupted Octavia, and she flinched instinctively. After a moment she realised that the guards hadn’t broken through the door yet, but it had still taken her by surprise – she had briefly forgotten about the guards.


 


Clearing her throat and getting up, Octavia continued. “So, if we do this…new way to live… what will we do? Ignore the call to adventure whenever it comes?”


 


“The hay do I know, Octavia?” Vinyl asked, affectionately tapping her wife on the head. “If we didn’t have any adventure in our lives, what would the point of it be? We’ll just…I dunno, focus on our music. Get normal jobs. Investigate supernatural mysteries. Do whatever it is regular ponies do.”


 


“I think that one of those isn’t what normal ponies do,” Octavia laughed. “But I’ll forgive you for it if you let me kiss you.”


 


“I wouldn’t have it any other –”


 


BANG! This time, whatever the guards had been trying to do to open the door worked – the desk leaning against it went flying across the room and crashed into a far wall, whilst the door itself was reduced to splinters. Vinyl and Octavia saw none of this, of course – they were too busy coughing from all of the dust thrown into the air and wondering why their ears were ringing so much.


 


When the dust finally cleared, Vinyl and Octavia found four guards standing before them, with each pointing a crossbow to one of the duo. Neither Vinyl nor Octavia were sure what to do – if it had just been one guard, or even two, they could have taken them out, but four? Making a move to attack one of them would just open oneself up to an attack from another.


 


“Well, captain?” asked one of the guards. “What now?”






“What do you think?” the guard with the most complex uniform replied. “Kill them."

“Wow,” exclaimed Vinyl, “what a twist!”