One of the myriad guards at the Omega Zone, this one named Bone Breaker, pushed open a door and entered a break room. Whilst that wasn’t the original purpose of this room, the Omega Zone was desolate enough that the guards could more or less use whichever rooms they wanted for whatever purposes they required, and within the first few hours of being stationed at the Omega Zone, the guards in the area Bone Breaker was patrolling had, unspoken, unanimously agreed that this particular room was to be a break room.
Bone Breaker pulled up a chair to one of the tables, sat down, and then immediately kicked it back, so that he was leaning backwards in the chair. He didn’t have any particular reason to relax in this manner, but he enjoyed doing so for at least a few hours each day. This was easily the easiest job he’d had in the last few years – walk around the corridors for a bit, make sure that nopony who wasn’t supposed to be there was there, rinse and repeat every few hours – and Bone Breaker liked to revel in his idleness. Might as well make the most of it, he figured, before he ended up back in some stupid organisation like COBRA, which, like most of the guards here, he had been in prior to this job.
Yes, life was pretty easy for Bone Breaker at the moment, and he liked it that way. If it hadn’t been for that report a little over an hour ago mentioning that some intruders had been captured, he would have doubted that there was even a need for the patrols. Hearing the news had inspired him to work extra hard on his patrol for about five minutes, before deciding that until an intruder’s presence affected him, there was no need to put in more effort than necessary, right?
Bone Breaker smirked to himself. And to think, some guards actually –
BANG! From a connecting room – the one the guards used as an impromptu pantry – something fell over, the sound interrupting Bone Breaker’s train of thought. At the same time, from the corner of his eye, Bone Breaker thought he saw something blue flash past in the same direction the sound came from, but when he looked, all was as it should be.
“Hello?” Bone Breaker called out, before realising what a stupid thing that was to ask. He was the only pony in here, of course. All that had happened was that something had fallen over.
For a brief moment, Bone Breaker debated pretending that he hadn’t heard anything, but his curiosity got the better of him. Getting out of his chair, Bone Breaker made his way over to the pantry, to find –
Nothing. The food supplies were ramshackle and unorganised even at the best of times, but from his brief glance over the pile, Bone Breaker couldn’t immediately see anything out of place, or that had fallen. That’s weird… he thought. He stared at it for another few seconds, and, still unable to work out what happened, internally shrugged, dismissing it.
Turning around, Bone Breaker walked right into a unicorn holding a box above her head with both hooves.
“What the- ?”
“Finishing move,” declared the unicorn, “Heaven’s Collapse!” With that, she slammed the box down to Bone Breaker’s head, knocking him out immediately. She stood there for a moment, ready to try something else if he was faking it, before relaxing.
“Alright,” Vinyl said cheerfully to herself, “one down, a billion to go!”
===============================
Slowly, Octavia opened her eyes. What had happened to her? Her head was throbbing, there was something cutting tightly into her hooves, and she had a horrible feeling that there was something important that had happened and that she had forgotten…
Blinking cautiously, Octavia realised that she recognised where she was – the interrogation room where she had…Octavia swallowed, not wanting to finish that thought. The floor had been cleared of The Bartender’s…remains… at least, which helped.
In addition to recognising the room, Octavia had also noticed that she was tied up. From the feel of things, something was keeping her front hooves tied together, whilst a rope bound her to the chair she was sitting in. She briefly struggled against them before conceding that she wasn’t going to break them any time soon.
“Ah, good, you’re awake,” said a pony from somewhere outside of Octavia’s field of view. For a brief moment Octavia wondered who it was and where she had heard their voice before, before the pony stepped into her field of view, revealing himself.
“Stumblefeather.” Octavia said it as though it was a curse word, as for all intents and purposes, it was.
“Hello, Octavia,” said Stumblefeather, slyly smiling. He had completely dropped any pretense of his previous persona, speaking confidently and clearly. “How are you feeling?”
“Why did you do it?” Octavia asked, ignoring the question. “What made you betray CHIELD?”
Stumblefeather considered the question for a moment before shrugging. “Better incentive. Better rewards, working for the other side. Try working as a double agent for twelve years and seeing how loyal you feel at the end of it all. Disregard that suggestion, of course; you won’t have the opportunity to do so.”
A shiver ran down Octavia’s spine. “That means that you intend to interrogate me and then kill me, I presume?” she asked. “Because you might as well skip the questions and move straight to the murder. You should know that I’m not a CHIELD agent; I don’t have any information that would matter to you.” If she was being honest with herself, Octavia wasn’t sure how she felt about Stumblefeather killing her, but it felt like the sort of line a spy should say. And besides, it was better to admit now that she didn’t have any information than to endure torture for nothing.
“Well, that’s an interesting proposition now, isn’t it?” said Stumblefeather. He pulled a chair up from a corner and sat backwards on it, resting his front hooves on the back of it and facing Octavia. “But I can see right through you – you want me to kill you so that there’s no chance of you leaking what CHIELD have learned about me.”
“Um…no, actually,” said Octavia.
Stumblefeather chuckled. “Please. I’ve dropped my act – you can drop yours. You and Vinyl Scratch managed to sneak past some of the toughest guards and mercenaries in all of Equestria. Some of them are even former COBRA members!”
“That’s not saying much,” muttered Octavia.
“You two successfully escaped from Neon Lights, and then even managed to trick the guards into taking you here –right to Second Round and I!”
“Well, it wasn’t quite like –”
“The only thing you haven’t seen through is that I engineered that scenario with Second Round in an attempt to lure any infiltrators to our position so that Second Round could take care of them, and even then, you improvised quite nicely!” congratulated Stumblefeather.
“Please don’t remind me,” said Octavia, looking away.
“So as I said – drop the act, stop pretending to be an innocent musician who’s been caught up in all of this by accident, and tell me what you know,” said Stumblefeather. “It could always be worse, you know – why, if Neon Light was alive and here –”
“Wait,” interrupted Octavia. “Neon Lights is dead?”
“Oh, you weren’t aware?” asked Stumblefeather. “Baron von Darkhoof killed him when he reported the results of his encounter with you and Vinyl Scratch. The good baron doesn’t like it when a situation doesn’t end as cleanly as it should have.”
Stumblefeather continued talking, but Octavia wasn’t listening. In both of her and Vinyl’s previous encounters with Baron von Darkhoof, he hadn’t shown such ruthlessness. He had hinted at it, and certainly didn’t seem above violence nor murder, but to flat-out kill Neon Lights…? That was interesting. With that in mind, how legitimate a threat to Equestria was Baron von Darkhoof’s plan?
That being said, whilst Octavia certainly didn’t condone murder (she made a point of avoiding looking at the stains on the floor as she thought of this), if she had to make a list of ponies in Equestria to be murdered, Neon Lights would certainly be near the top of that list.
“…rather an ironic way to go, wasn’t it?” Octavia heard Stumblefeather say as she ended her train of thoughts and returned to reality. “I never realised that whipped cream could – but wait, I’m getting ahead of myself.” He gave Octavia what could have been a smile, although it looked more like a leer. “We’re here to talk about you, aren’t we?”
“I’ve already told you I don’t have anything to say to you,” Octavia reminded Stumblefeather. “What’s the worst you’ll do to me?”
“If that’s the case,” Stumblefeather said as he reached down below his chair and picked up something which gleamed in the dim light, “then,” he continued, “I start using this.” He held the object out to Octavia, allowing her to see it more clearly. It was a knife.
“Ah,” said Octavia.
===============================
“Sir! I have returned with the report you requested, sir!” stated the guard as he entered the office. He saluted with a hoof. The room was quite small, although not so small that the two wouldn’t be able to walk around it comfortably if they so desired. Thankfully, it had enough height for the two ponies to not have to worry about hitting their heads on the air duct that ran along the ceiling.
“Very good, Armoured Fortress; at ease,” replied the guard captain. He had been looking at a map of his floor of the Omega Zone, but he moved away from it and to the newly arrived guard. “Now, what news do you have to report?”
“It’s as you suspected, sir,” said Armoured Fortress, allowing himself to relax. “I checked the rest of the floor and couldn’t find any sign of Silver Blade, Bone Breaker, Banana Cupcakes, or Confirmed Kill.”
“Hmm,” grunted the captain. He had a look at the map on the table he had been viewing prior, and after a moment of hesitation, swept it to the floor. “No, it’s bloody useless,” he muttered to himself, lost in thought.
Armoured Fortress hesitated a moment, and then asked, “Sir? If I may be permitted to ask a question?”
“Of course, Armoured Fortress,” said the captain. “What is it?”
“What exactly do you suspect has happened?” Armoured Fortress asked. “Because, well, the rest of us have been talking, and there are, um, rumours…”
The captain sighed. He had seen this had been coming. “Take a seat, Fortress,” he said, gesturing. “This may take a while.” Going over to the liquor cabinet in the room, he poured himself and Armoured Fortress each a glass of whiskey, ignoring Armoured Fortress’s cries that his body couldn’t tolerate alcohol.
“Now,” said the captain after a hearty sip of his drink, “have you ever heard of the legend of the Wailing Mare?”
“No, sir,” answered Armoured Fortress.
“Hmm. Well, as the legend goes, there were two mares who were exploring the Omega Zone – nopony knows why, although most agree that they were looking for something there – and whilst exploring it, one of them tripped, fell off the island, and drowned in the ocean.”
“That’s horrible, sir,” said Armoured Fortress.
“I rather thought it was quite clumsy myself. Drink up, that stuff isn’t cheap,” reminded the captain. “Anyway, they say that although that mare drowned, her story wasn’t over – she returned to our physical plane of existence as a ghost, and now haunts the Omega Zone, killing everypony she meets until she finds the lover she left behind such a long time ago. As she traverses these cold and empty corridors, the Wailing Mare screams out all sorts of babble, the meaning of which is known only to her – hence the name.
“Armoured Fortress, I have something to confess to you,” said the captain. “I believe that the legend of the Wailing Mare is true, and that we are all being haunted by her ghost.” He took a larger swig of his drink before continuing. “Do you think that there could be some truth to the legend, or am I just an old, senile captain, chasing ghosts?”
“Well, I can’t say it’s implausible, sir,” replied Armoured Fortress. “But why haven’t I heard of this legend before?”
“Probably because it’s only about ten minutes or so old,” said the captain. “Nevertheless, what do you think?”
“It does match up with what we know so far – why everypony is disappearing, and why we can’t find whatever is doing it,” said Armoured Fortress. He looked at his drink, debating having some out of politeness, but deciding against it. “But, well...there’s another rumour going around, one that the men have been talking about lately.”
“Yes?” asked the captain. “Yes, what is this rumour?”
“Well, some of the guards, they’re saying…they’re saying that we’ve all got a hit placed on our heads, sir,” said Armoured Fortress reluctantly.
“A hit?” repeated the captain. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
“Well, they- they say that the guards disappearing all matches the M.O. of one of the greatest spies in CHIELD’s history – Silent Takedown,” said Armoured Fortress. “He was a legendary spy back in the day who could not only spot the needle in the proverbial haystack from over a kilometre away, but could then shoot it accurately, each and every time. His stealth skills were said to be legendary, too – give him the layout of a building, and you wouldn’t be able to find him if he covered himself in bright lights and played an airhorn with each step.” As Armoured Fortress finished, he decided that it was worth trying the whiskey; at least a small amount.
“That does sound rather deadly!” exclaimed the captain, ignoring Armoured Fortress’s spluttering and coughing. “But why would this Silent Takedown want to get rid of us? How would he even have heard of us, and made his way here?!”
“This is just speculation, sir –” Armoured Fortress paused to cough heavily once more “- but they say that…well, that Silent Takedown had some sort of time manipulation magic,” explained Armoured Fortress. “Some say he could rewind time briefly, so that if he messed up he could try again, whilst others say that he could flat out travel through time at will. I’m not sure why he would want to get rid of us, but if these time manipulation powers were real, that would explain some of the latter.” Armoured Fortress went over to a water cooler and poured himself a glass of water as he finished.
“Well! That’s not as interesting as my story, but it’s certainly – spirits of the air!” exclaimed the captain, jumping slightly as what sounded like a loud banging noise sounded somewhere right outside the door. “Did you hear that?”
“Th-the banging, sir?” asked Armoured Fortress.
“The Wailing Mare and/or Silent Takedown have come for us!” wailed the captain. “Oh, if I’d only known that this was going to be my last night alive – I would have been a much crueler captain whilst I had the chance!”
Knowing that it was fairly fruitless, but feeling the need to have some sort of minute control of the situation, Armoured Fortress walked over to the door and locked it.
“Armoured Fortress! You’re a genius!” exclaimed the captain. “The Wailing Mare can’t get us now – ghosts can’t go through doors without an invitation!”
Armoured Fortress debated arguing the point, but he thought the better of it, and instead said, “And if it’s Silent Takedown, sir?”
“Well, the door’s locked, isn’t it?” pointed out the captain. “Silent Takedown won’t be able to get through the door, and there are no other ways into –”
The captain was interrupted by another BANG! as the air vent cover above him was loudly kicked out and landed to the floor. As he and Armoured Fortress both looked to see what was happening, a white unicorn dropped out of the air duct and landed onto the captain, knocking him out immediately. As Armoured Fortress stood there, gaping in surprise, she took advantage, and grabbed his head with her hooves before slamming it into the ground, similarly taking him out.
“Alright!” said Vinyl. “That makes number seventeen thousand, nine-hundred and thirty-one!” She pulled out a notebook and quill, made a mark in it, and then frowned. “Wait, no, that’s number six.”
Vinyl looked around the room, wondering where she was now. She had been travelling through the air ducts, which had the advantage of avoiding the guards, but the downside of her having even less idea of where she was in the building than she might have otherwise.
After a cursory scan, Vinyl at first thought that this room didn’t have anything which would help her in finding Octavia or taking out more guards, but then she spotted what the captain had been examining earlier and grinned.
“Whiskey!”
===============================
“…and so I think that if my parents had shown more affection towards each other when I was growing up, maybe that would have helped?” Octavia suggested. “I even might have realised that I was a lesbian sooner if I had seen more romance between them, so I would have realised how apathetic I am towards male-female romantic relationships…but I suppose that that is just idle speculation.”
“Very good, Octavia! See how much progress we’re making in our session?” asked Stumblefeather. “There’s just one problem: I didn’t ask you to tell me about your childhood.”
“Didn’t you ask me to tell you anything that might be important, no matter how minor, in case it turns out to be relevant in some way I’m not aware of?” Octavia asked.
“Well, yes, but I meant anything CHIELD might have said to you,” Stumblefeather said. “Something like, ‘If you fail this mission, it’ll be a real freeze to clean it up’, or along those lines. Even if you don’t have any idea about what CHIELD know about me, as you’ve already claimed, I want to know what contingency plans CHIELD has in place for if you and Vinyl Scratch fail your mission – well, rather, if CHIELD realise that you’ve failed your mission.”
“A real freeze?” Octavia repeated. “You realise that’s not a figure of speech, yes?”
“That was an example!” growled Stumblefeather. He seemed about to follow up on that, but thought the better of it, and took a deep breath instead. Changing tactics, he asked, “How did you and Vinyl Scratch get inside the Omega Zone? Surely CHIELD would have given you some gadgets of some sort.”
“Of course,” said Octavia.
“Excellent! What were they?”
“Skating boards, naturally.”
Stumblefeather resisted the urge to stab himself in the eye with his knife, and end this torture. But in spite of Octavia’s ridiculous answer, she seemed to be sincere, so he reluctantly continued.
“You…skateboarded into the Omega Zone?” Stumblefeather asked.
“Well, not into it, exactly,” Octavia said. “We skating boarded down from the plateau we landed on down to the main building, then snuck in through a vent cover that had been conveniently left open. You might want to get that looked at, by the way.”
“There’s an open vent – oh, wait, that,” said Stumblefeather. Speaking more to himself, he added, “I had almost forgotten about that, but it looks like it has paid off in the end after all.”
“Wait, how do you know about the vent? It was cut open,” Octavia said, frowning. “Why have you still left it broken? Unless…wait, do not tell me that you were the one who cut open the vent?”
Stumblefeather smirked by way of response.
“But…why?” Octavia asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Stumblefeather said. “So that you two would could break in.”
===============================
“Wow! What a twist!” exclaimed Vinyl. She pushed a lever in front of her, hesitantly at first, but more confidently as she saw its effect. “Who would have thought that this robot was so easy to control – and whilst really drunk, to boot?”
By way of response, the mercenary she had coerced into leading her to the robot cowered. Although he and Vinyl were theoretically safe inside the robot’s cockpit, which was protected by a magical force field, he wasn’t willing to place all of his faith in it.
“Yeah! Take that, desk!” declared Vinyl as she swung one of the bipedal robot’s arms at a desk and threw it into a wall. “And you too, desk!” she added, hitting another desk. “You want me to stop, huh? Well, maybe I will if you tell me where – where–” Vinyl paused in her rampage for a moment, then looked to her reluctant sidekick. “Death’s Head, who am I looking for again?” she asked.
“Your – your wife?” he suggested hesitantly.
“Yeah!” agreed Vinyl, pumping a hoof into the air in excitement. She gave Death’s Head what she thought was a friendly pat on the back, but was actually a heavy blow, and then took a swig of raw whiskey from the bottle she had been carrying around with her. “Let’s do this, guys! The three of us can save Octavia!”
“B-but there’s only two of us,” pointed out Death’s Head, an observation which got him a whiskey bottle to the head in response.
“DON’T FORGET WHISKEY!!” shouted Vinyl at him. She took another swig, then returned to the robot’s controls. “Now, let’s go save Octavia!” She was about to swing the arms of the robot wildly once more, but something stopped her.
Looking out the robot’s glass screen, Vinyl could see another robot standing in front of them, looking nearly identical to hers.
“You fool!” came a tinny voice from the other robot. “How do you expect to save your wife when you can’t even save yourself?”
“Gasp!” gasped Vinyl. “How did he hear what I was saying from inside this robot when he’s out there?”
“Prepare to meet your match, as between the two of us, I have the superior robotic model,” said the opposing voice. “For you see, my model has a secret weapon that yours doesn’t!”
“What is it?!” Vinyl asked. “Tell me!”
“My robot…is painted red!”
“Sweet Celestia, he’s right!” said Vinyl, only noticing this fact for the first time. “But if that’s the case…how can I defeat that robot with this pitiful, colourless thing?!”
===============================
“You - you wanted Vinyl and I to break in?” Octavia spluttered. “So you’re still with CHIELD?!” She started struggling against her bonds again. “Then get me out of here! We can try and find out what happened to Vinyl – where she went after falling into the hole – and then we can - we can stop Baron von Darkhoof!”
“You might be reading into this a bit much,” said Stumblefeather. “I opened the vent cover, yes, but I didn’t do it specifically for you two – it was for whomever CHIELD sent to the Omega Zone once they decided to act on my information about Baron von Darkhoof using the island as a base.”
“Just because I’m not a CHIELD agent, doesn’t mean that we can’t work together!” Octavia insisted. She jumped in the chair a little, trying to rotate it around so that Stumblefeather could untie her.
“On the contrary, I am still what you would consider to be an enemy,” said Stumblefeather, making no move to get up and help. “Therefore, I shall do no such thing.”
“But- then what do you mean about opening the vent cover?” Octavia asked. “Whose side are you on?”
This, for some reason, prompted Stumblefeather to get up, although to Octavia’s dismay, it still wasn’t to untie her. He turned so that to Octavia, he was in profile.
“Tell me, Octavia, what do you see?” Stumblefeather asked.
“Umm…” Octavia didn’t quite understand the question. “A…pegasus? One with a blue coat and a brown mane?” Stumblefeather didn’t say anything. “A…friendly ally who’s working as a double agent and isn’t sure whether he can reveal his cover? A…oh, your cutie mark – it’s a broken vase?”
“So what does that make my special talent?”
“Breaking things? Being clumsy?” Octavia suggested. Stumblefeather snorted. “Pottery? Did you used to be a potter?”
“My cutie mark has a much more…abstract meaning than any of those,” said Stumblefeather, returning to his seat as he said so. “My cutie mark represents my talent for breaking and destroying all around me; that it is not safe to leave important things where I can access them. Of course, the alternative interpretation you considered also assists in that; if ponies think that I’m a clumsy, harmless pony, then that can only be beneficial to me.”
“Wait, other ponies consider potters to be clumsy?” Octavia asked.
“And that, Octavia, is where my true allegiance lies: to nopony, except myself,” Stumblefeather continued. “In this endeavor, I’m merely using everyone whilst appearing completely trustworthy to both CHIELD and Baron von Darkhoof. But in the end, I’ll be the only one left standing - just as my cutie mark dictates.” He let out what might have been a sigh of relief. “You know, I’ve never actually told anyone what my cutie mark really means. It feels good to get that off my chest!”
“So…wait, I understand how you’re with Baron von Darkhoof and how you’ll gain…whatever it is you gain when whatever his plan is comes to fruition,” Octavia said, thinking it out, “but what did you plan to get by letting CHIELD agents into the Omega Zone?”
“The plan was for them – or rather, you – to take care of Baron von Darkhoof and the rest of our merry little gang, whilst I pretended to still be working for CHIELD,” said Stumblefeather. “That would then allow me to sweep in afterwards and complete Darkhoof’s plan myself after taking out the CHIELD agents, leaving everypony out of the picture except for myself.”
“Well then, I’m sorry to inform you, but it looks like your plan has failed,” Octavia said smugly. “Vinyl – Vinyl and I haven’t managed to stop Baron von Darkhoof, as I’m sure you’re aware. You’ll have to take him on all by yourself.”
“A feat I might almost be willing to try, were it not for the former leader of COBRA, Serpent Superior, guarding Darkhoof at all times,” said Stumblefeather. “And unfortunately for me, he is already suspicious of me due to my past history with CHIELD.”
“Serpent Superior is in your little gang, too?” Octavia asked. She shook her head sadly. “Who’s next? Natural Twenty?”
===============================
“I still do not see why we need any more members of our group, Neon Lights,” said Stumblefeather. “We’ve got enough as it is, and we are set to take over the Omega Zone in a matter of weeks – why introduce another pony into the mix and overcomplicate my perfectly workable plan?”
“Because you can bet that those two mares will somehow find out about us, and ruin everything!” growled Neon Lights. For once, his sunglasses were appropriate, as the weather had been bright and sunny the entire way to the Canterlot suburb the two ponies now found themselves in. “And even if they don’t, who knows? This guy might have a hot sister!” Without giving Stumblefeather the opportunity to interrupt, Neon Lights reached out and pressed the doorbell to the house the two were standing before.
The two ponies stood there awkwardly for about a minute before the door opened, revealing a unicorn with a frizzy mane. “Hello?” he asked. “How may I help you?”
“Hey! This isn’t my house!” said Stumblefeather, switching to his more dazed and clumsy persona.
“Ignore him,” said Neon, flashing Stumblefeather a quick glare behind his sunglasses. “You’re Natural Twenty, yeah? We’re here to make you an offer – do you want to get revenge on Octavia and Vinyl Scratch?”
“Revenge?” Natural Twenty asked. “On those two? Whatever for?”
Neon Lights faltered. “W-well, they beat you in some kinda game, didn’t they? Don’t you want to play another game with them, and beat them at that?”
“A game? Well, I suppose that I haven’t seen them for a while…” Natural Twenty put a hoof to his chin in thought. “Which system would we be using? Pony Tales: Aspirations of Harmony? Ogres and Oubliettes? Draconequus: The Warping?”
“Er…” Neon Lights looked to Stumblefeather for help, who glared at him in turn. “It’s…real life?” Neon Lights answered awkwardly.
“Ah, it’s a LARP then!” Natural Twenty said excitedly. “Sounds like fun! Just pass my Persuasion Check DC and I’ll be there!” He held out a small object to Neon Lights, who stared at it, unsure what to do. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Neon Lights hesitantly picked up the object, as though it was going to bite him. Looking at it, he realised that it was a twenty-sided die. So what was he supposed to do with it? Natural Twenty was looking at him expectantly, and when he looked to Stumblefeather for help, the pegasus made a small gesture with his head. I…roll it? Feeling a bit foolish, Neon Lights did so, kneeling down and lightly rolling the die along the asphalt. It came to a stop at Natural Twenty’s hooves.
“Hmm. A one,” commented Natural Twenty, looking at it.
“…Is that good?” Neon Lights asked after realising that he wasn’t going to receive another response from Natural Twenty.
“Not only do you not convince me, but I also think that you two are hoodlums attempting to con me into helping some dastardly scheme of yours to kill Vinyl and Octavia,” said Natural Twenty, levitating the die from the ground as he did so. “If you don’t leave within the next minute, I’ll call the guards on you.” He slammed the door in their faces…only to open it a moment later, cheerfully add, “Give Vinyl and Octavia my best!” and then slam it again.
For the third time, Neon Lights looked to Stumblefeather for assistance. The pegasus shrugged. “It was your idea.”
===============================
“…Of course not,” said Stumblefeather. “I’ve never even heard of that unicorn.”
“Well, nevertheless,” began Octavia, “if your plan was to have Vinyl and I eliminate your allies, why did you knock me out and tie me up? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to pretend to still be working with CHIELD and to then ally with myself – and Vinyl, after we found her from wherever she’s ended up – to stop the others?”
Stumblefeather scowled for the first time. “I saw that you had been sent rather than a real CHIELD agent and panicked; I thought they might have suspected something and sent you two rather than regular agents. Hence why I decided to see what you, and thus they, knew. So sue me; I made a mistake in trying to take over Baron von Darkhoof’s grand plan.”
“You keep mentioning that plan of his, but I still have no idea what it is,” Octavia said. “Do you care to explain?”
Stumblefeather threw back his head and laughed. “And – and what makes you think I’ll just share that information with you?” he asked in-between laughs. “Did you forget who is interrogating who, here?”
Octavia shrugged as best she could whilst tied up. “Well, you’ve told me pretty much everything else at this point,” she pointed out. “I thought it may be worth a shot.” That stopped Stumblefeather’s laughter.
“…You may have a point there,” said Stumblefeather, unable to come up with a rebuttal.
===============================
“Hit me.”
Complying with Vinyl’s request, the dealer took a card from the top of the deck and slid it over to Vinyl, ensuring that the face of it was never exposed to anypony along the way. Vinyl casually lifted the card up, raised an eyebrow at what she saw, and then put it down again.
Crap. That’s not going to be much of a help, the unicorn thought. She looked around the table. By this late stage, most of the players had been eliminated. Whilst that should be cause for celebration, all it really meant was that the remaining players – three, excluding Vinyl – were tougher than the rest, and that Vinyl would need the devil’s luck if she wanted to win the game. As it was, all three were looking at Vinyl expectantly now, trying to gauge how useful the card she’d been dealt was based on her reaction.
Vinyl took another look at her cards. It was easy to see the strategy she should use, but whether or not it worked would depend entirely upon what she said next, and who to. She had an alternate strategy, of course, one which was much safer, but that would likely weaken her in the long run, and make the entire game a waste of time.
Screw it, thought Vinyl, I’ve got to make a decision. Might as well go with my gut. “Deadly Shot,” she said, turning to the pegasus on her left.
“Yes, Vinyl?” the pegasus asked.
Vinyl took one last look at her cards to confirm what she was going to do. “Do you have any Black Lotuses?” she asked.
“What?”
“Black Lotus. Do you have any of them?” Vinyl held her breath. Had she chosen the wrong pony to ask?
“That’s…that’s not a legal card,” said Deadly Shot. A few ponies nodded in agreement.
“Really?” Vinyl asked, surprised. She held up the card to everypony to confirm that she had it. “Then where the hay did this come from?”
Some murmurs filled the room as each pony came up with their own theory. “Probably slipped in by accident,” said Deadly Shot.
“Oh,” said Vinyl. “I was wondering why the back of it was different to all the other cards.” Using her telekinesis, she tore the card into scrap and threw it away. “No reason to keep that useless thing then! Deadly Shot, in that case, do you have any…” - Vinyl took another look at her cards - “…sevens?”
Deadly Shot looked at his own cards, and then snapped his teeth in irritation. “Yes,” he growled, reluctantly passing two cards over to Vinyl.
“Alright!” said Vinyl. She placed Deadly Shot’s cards with two of her own, spreading them out so that everypony could see them clearly. “That’s a full house, everypony! And you all know what that means!”
In unison, every pony except for Vinyl begrudgingly said, “You sunk my battleship!”, and then took away a small figurine from the miniature battlefields each had before them.
“Cool. Now, before my turn ends, I’ll activate this trap card,” said Vinyl, revealing another of her cards, “which will let me roll the dice one more time…” Vinyl did so, shaking them a few times before rolling them out of habit. “And that’s double eights! Which means I pass Go, which means I get two hundred bits!” Everypony sighed as the dealer passed Vinyl over some fake money. “And now it’s your turn, Deadly Shot,” Vinyl said, passing over the dice to the pegasus.
“Thanks,” grunted Deadly Shot.
“No worries!” said Vinyl. “By the way, what are we playing again?”
===============================
“So, how about it?” Octavia asked. “Ready to let me in on the big plan of Baron von Darkhoof?”
Stumblefeather thought it over for a moment. “…Let’s say I do,” he said slowly. “Let’s say I tell you what he’s planning: every little detail, where everything is, and how he could be stopped. What then?”
Where was Stumblefeather going with this? “Well, seeing as how you seem to have an idea of how Darkhoof could be stopped, I’d probably add a few extra ideas of mine to whatever you have planned, and then I’d suggest you untie me. We could then work as a team, and stop Baron von Darkhoof.”
“Right,” said Stumblefeather, savouring the word. He had previously placed his knife on the ground, but as he spoke, he picked it up, and idly began playing with it in his hooves; turning and twisting it over and over again. “I take you down to the lowest basement, we take care of Darkhoof and Serpent Superior…and then what? There’s nopony to activate the plan, so we can just dismantle it all to stop anypony else from trying the same thing, right?”
“Exactly!” said Octavia. “Or, um, maybe?” she said, backtracking quickly. “I suppose we could always just go our separate ways at that point, or, um, work out what to do after we’ve assessed the –”
“Or,” interrupted Stumblefeather, silencing Octavia immediately, “I could just kill you now.”
Octavia tried pushing against her bonds once more. Was she absolutely sure that she couldn’t break them? “U-um, why would you do that?” she asked. “Sure-surely you’d need some help to fight Serpent Superior a-and Darkhoof?” The ropes tying her to the chair weren’t giving at all, and whatever was keeping Octavia’s hooves together felt even stronger.
“Heh.” Stumblefeather got up from his chair and walked over to Octavia. He was still holding the knife, but much less playfully than prior. “If you were anypony else, I’d probably just go with my original plan of using you. But you… I’ll admit it, I can see you outsmarting me, and taking me out before I do you.” He placed the tip of the knife against Octavia’s throat. “I think I’d rather take you out of the picture whilst I have the upper hoof.”
===============================
“You’ll have to – hup! – do better than that to catch me!” panted Vinyl, galloping forwards as fast as she could and diving into a room.
“Run all you wish,” said her pursuer, a large pony encased completely in black armour, “for it matters not. I will catch you in the end.” He slowly stepped into the room Vinyl had entered and turned his head from side to side, looking for her. As with many rooms in the Omega Zone, it was a laboratory, but unlike most of them, it seemed to be in use – several tables had test tubes filled with brightly coloured liquids on top of them.
“Give up now, and I will make your death painless,” said the armour-clad pony, finding no sign of Vinyl from his cursory check. He withdrew a large claymore from a sheath. “The blessed blade Deitlaon will make sure of that.”
“No chance, Ebony Knight!” said Vinyl, dropping down on the pony from somewhere above. “I can’t die until after I’ve found my wife – and maybe not even then!” From her position on the Ebony Knight’s back, Vinyl punched him with her hooves a few times, eliciting small ting!s from the armour. “Um, can I try my dramatic entrance again?” Vinyl asked. “I feel like it might work a bit better if I actually do some damage to you.”
Without a word, the Ebony Knight twisted his back so that Vinyl fell off, and then, faster than his bulk would imply, spun around and kicked her, sending her flying across the room.
“You have intruded upon the domain of my master with intent to cause harm,” said the Knight as he slowly advanced towards Vinyl. “I have offered you the chance to peacefully leave, yet you did not take it. Your fate is – what?!” he exclaimed. “Nooooo!!”
“Huh?” Vinyl asked, dazedly. What had set the Ebony Knight off? She was lying next to the table which she had knocked over when he had kicked her, spilling the chemicals upon it to the floor. “What – what’s wrong?” she asked, getting to her hooves.
“I’ve knocked over the antipentathemol diocide!” the Ebony Knight said, pointing his sword to the spilled chemicals.
“Ha! You should take a lesson from me – think before you act!” Vinyl said boastfully. “Now that you’ve knocked over the – the green stuff, your days are numbered! Uh…what does that stuff even do?”
“The antipentathemol diocide will break down into glucose now that it’s exposed to air,” the Ebony Knight said. “The floors will soon be all sticky, and I will be the one who has to clean it up!”
“Oh, um…okay then…” said Vinyl, slightly perplexed. “I guess that means that - Secret Vinyl Surprise Attack!” she suddenly declared, surrounding the Ebony Knight’s helmet with her telekinesis and attempting to remove it. Yet no matter how hard she tried, Vinyl couldn’t get it to move one bit.
“Don’t waste your strength,” said the Ebony Knight. “My armour has been blessed by Celestia herself, making it impervious to all harm or removal. You would have better luck trying to raise the sun.” He swung his hoof, the one holding the sword, at Vinyl, hitting her with the flat of the blade and knocking her into another table.
“You had no chance the moment you tried to face my might,” said the Ebony Knight, once more slowly making his way over to Vinyl. “However, I praise you with this – you are certainly more confident than most I face.” He pointed his gigantic sword at Vinyl, the tip to her throat. “In another world, you might have been a worthy opponent.”
“H-hey!” Vinyl protested. “Don’t I get any last words?”
The Ebony Knight considered that. “Very well,” he said, “out of respect for you, I grant you this chance to make peace with your death. But make these words qui- what?! Nooooo!!” This time, the Ebony Knight flat out dropped his sword and fell to the ground, grasping his head with his hooves.
“…Sorry?” Vinyl said, getting up and walking to the Ebony Knight’s side.
“The ethenyl ethanoate!” exclaimed the Ebony Knight. It took Vinyl a moment to realise what he was talking about, before realising that more chemicals have been spilled. “It’s ruined! How am I supposed to paint my action figures now?!”
“Well, um…it’s not that bad, buddy,” said Vinyl, uncomfortably patting the Ebony Knight on the shoulder plate. “There’s always more ethy eaten-eight, right?”
“Silence!” said the Ebony Knight, hitting Vinyl with a hoof hard enough to send her flying across the room, crashing her into yet another table. “My personal life does not matter in this duel of ours!”
“This is a duel?” coughed Vinyl as she picked herself up. “Feels a bit one-sided to me…”
“Do not presume to sympathise with me or know me as you would yourself,” continued the Ebony Knight. With each step he took towards Vinyl, his massive bulk shook the nearby tables, causing small ripples in the chemicals atop each. “All that matters is our fight. I do not wish to kill you, and so I have given you the opportunity to leave this island. I have offered you a painless death. I have given you the chance to make peace with your imminent death.”
“All these offers, but you can’t just let me do what I need to before leaving the island?” Vinyl asked, half-jokingly. She looked around for a way to escape the juggernaut bearing down upon her, but with all of the tables in the way, she couldn’t see a way out.
“I am not the one who has made this more difficult for you,” said the Ebony Knight, drawing back his sword in preparation of a swing. “I am merely – what?! Nooooo!!”
“Oh, for Celestia’s sake,” sighed Vinyl. “What is it this time?”
“My cordial!” shouted the Ebony Knight, pointing to the bright red liquid which had been spilled. “I was going to drink that in celebration of defeating you!”
“Y’know, given that I just randomly ran into this room, you sure do know a lot about all the different chemicals in here,” commented Vinyl. Then a thought occurred to her.Hey, if this is how much he’s stressing out over some of the chemicals getting spilled, what’ll happen if I spill all of them?
“Wh- what are you doing?!” the Ebony Knight asked in horror as Vinyl levitated test tube racks up, one at a time, and threw them to the ground. “Don’t just drop – th-that one is particularly – be careful! You might –”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Vinyl. “Looks like I found your weakness, huh?” She only had a few test tubes left, but that didn’t matter – she could use them to delay the Ebony Knight for long enough for her to get away, at least temporarily.
“So, what’s so important about these two?” Vinyl asked, throwing two test tubes to the floor together. “Let me guess – one’s a new cleaning product and the other is your favourite brand of mouthwash?
“N-no!” said the Ebony Knight, dropping his sword and taking a few steps backwards. “Those were semianaperidoctic acid and explorubeicidium!”
Something in the Ebony Knight’s tone made Vinyl take a few steps back from the spilled chemicals herself. “Wh-what does that mean?” Vinyl asked. She took another step back, just to be sure.
“If they’re mixed together- which you’ve just done – they’ll explode!” said the Ebony Knight.
“Wh-”
BOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!
===============================
“No!” shouted Octavia. She may have been tied to the chair, but her hind legs were still free, and so she raised them up and kicked Stumblefeather in the stomach, knocking him back. “Come any closer and you’ll regret it,” snarled Octavia to Stumblefeather as the pegasus began advancing on her once more.
Stumblefeather shook his head condescendingly. “How?” he asked. “You’ll glare at me and I’ll have a heart attack?”
“I’ll kick your damn skull off,” spat Octavia. “Just – just stay there, or else.”
“Whilst you’re tied up? I believe that,” said Stumblefeather. “Of course, you don’t seem to have realised that you have something of a mobility problem which I myself lack…but really, why so hostile?” Stumblefeather had circled around behind Octavia. The Earth pony was sure that it was going to end there and then, but he continued his circuit around Octavia, his knife never leaving his hoof. “After all, I’m going to reunite you with your beloved Vinyl Scratch.”
“Like hay you will!” said Octavia. “Vinyl’s just fine, and – and once I’ve stopped you, she and I will stop Darkhoof together! When you decided to turn your back on CHIELD, you bet on the wrong horses!”
“I’ll give you this, you’re making me question why I’m going to kill you,” said Stumblefeather, his voice once again coming from behind Octavia. “The entertainment value of your denial towards Vinyl dying is almost worth keeping you alive for. You just can’t comprehend it, can you? She was thrown down that hole, which leads straight to the ocean. If the fall didn’t kill her, the current would have dashed her to bits against the rocks.”
“Vinyl’s. Not. Dead,” said Octavia between gritted teeth.
“Yes. Yes, she is,” said Stumblefeather. He was standing before Octavia once more, perfectly still. He passed his knife from one hoof to the other, then seemed to think better of it, and switched it back. “And you’re about to join her.”
BOOOOOOMMM!!!!!!
Is this really what death is like? Octavia wondered. Lots of falling concrete, noise, and chaos? Octavia did her best to shield herself from the debris coming down around her, closing her eyes and ducking her head. It wasn’t what she’d pictured at all, especially since Stumblefeather had slit her throat.
Or…had he? Her throat didn’t hurt at all, and it still felt as though she was tied up with rope. As the noise quietened, Octavia realised that whatever had happened, it wasn’t thanks to Stumblefeather. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes to find that she was still in the same room as before. Judging by the partially missing ceiling and the large amount of rubble that had suddenly appeared, something had caused an explosion a floor above, which had in turn caused some structural collapse. It was a miracle that Octavia hadn’t been underneath a part of the ceiling which had broken.
“Urgh…W-wow, this outdoes destroying that elevator by heaps!”
Octavia’s heart skipped a beat. She knew that voice.
“Vinyl!” she called out. There was plenty of dust in the air, so she couldn’t see the other mare, but she knew that voice well enough to know that she hadn’t been mistaken.
“Huh? Octavia?” There was the sound of crumbling shards of concrete tumbling down one another, and then there she was – Vinyl galloping out of the dust towards – “Octavia!”
“Vinyl!” Octavia repeated. The dust had her eyes tearing up, but even if it hadn’t been doing so, her eyes would probably be watering just as badly.
“Oh man, talk about lucky, huh?” Vinyl said as she reached Octavia. She gave her wife a quick hug, then went behind her chair and began to undo her ropes. “How are you doing, beautiful?”
“Vinyl, I – fantastic, now that you’re here,” said Octavia. “How about you? What happened?”
Vinyl finished untying the ropes, loosened them, then helped Octavia out of the chair. She gave Octavia a grin as she did so. “Long story, but guess who just blew up one of the Omega Zone’s labs? Vinyl Scratch, baby!”
“Oh, Vinyl,” said Octavia, as she half-hugged, half-collapsed into Vinyl, “never ever change.”
“I’ll drink to that!” laughed Vinyl. She released Octavia from their hug, but allowed her to rest her head on her shoulder. “But what are you still doing here in this lame room? I expected to find you beating up Baron von Darkhoof with one hoof tied behind your back or something, not for you to be hanging around in this lame-o place.”
“It was Stumblefeather,” said Octavia darkly. “It turns out that he has been working against CHIELD for some time, and so he tried interrogating me to find out whether or not they had worked it out.”
“Stumblefeather, huh?” said Vinyl. She shook her head slowly. “Pity. He seemed sincere enough when he told me he was working for CHIELD back in the Amarezon – wait, where is he now? Is he coming back?”
Octavia pointed a hoof. She had noticed it earlier – where Stumblefeather had been was a large chunk of concrete, some blood leaking out from below it. Vinyl drew a sharp breath. “Nasty,” she muttered.
“So what about you, Vinyl?” Octavia asked. “How did you survive that fall?”
“Oh, that! That’s a long story, so I’ll start at the end and work my way back to the start!” said Vinyl happily. “So there I was, fighting the Ebony Knight, right?”
“Who?”
“The Ebony Knight – some guy in black armour who seemed to think that there was some kinda unstoppable destiny that meant he had to kill me as long as I was on the island,” Vinyl explained. “It’s kinda ironic though – he’s probably one of the deadliest enemies either of us have fought, but in the end, he was done in by the simplest of attacks: a gigantic explosion.”
“I’m still alive, Vinyl Scratch,” came an echoing, metallic voice from below the rubble.
“Argh!” shouted Vinyl, jumping into the air. “Quick, Octavia, let’s get out of here!” Galloping out of the room, it was all Octavia could do to follow Vinyl. They ran down several stairs and through several corridors as fast as they could. For some mysterious reason, they never ran into any guards – or rather, they never ran into any conscious guards. That worried Octavia. Had Vinyl noticed? What did it mean? Octavia would be reluctant to admit it should she be pressed on it, but her first thought was that there must have been a ghost haunting the Omega Zone, for surely only a ghost could take out so many guards so efficiently.
Finally the two came to a stop, leaning against a pair of large, metallic doors. “That,” panted Octavia, “was more running than I expected.” She hung her head low and allowed her tongue to hang out as she took a few heavenly breaths.
“Yeah, it was,” said Vinyl, moving a bit closer to Octavia. “But maybe I was just trying to get you alone?”
That made Octavia smile. Classic Vinyl. “I won’t object to a bit of kissing for a moment or two,” she said. “But!” she added as Vinyl went in for the kill, “I quickly need to tell you something important first. Remember what The Bartender said? Baron von Darkhoof’s plans are on the eve of their completion.”
“Uh huh,” said Vinyl, focusing entirely on Octavia’s lips.
“And Stumblefeather let slip that there’s something in the lowest basement – I’m not sure whether it’s something that could stop the plan itself or something else, but I think that should be our next destination,” said Octavia.
“Are you just saying that because that’s where we are right now?” Vinyl asked, grinning cheekily.
“Wait, it is?” Octavia asked.
“Indeed it is!” came a nasally new voice.
Octavia’s head whipped towards the new voice. She shouldn’t have been surprised, between the voice and what Stumblefeather had said before. She would recognise that face – well, mask – anywhere.
“Serpent Superior,” she said.
“Commander!” exclaimed Vinyl.
Serpent Superior cocked a crossbow attached to his front hoof and aimed it at the two. “You two have done some damage around here,” he said. “I hope you enjoyed it, because this is the end of the line. I’m your opponent now!”