//------------------------------//
// Part 10 
// Story: Manhattan Ballad 
// by ObCom 
//------------------------------//

Bass Leader was a busy man. A lazy, unmotivated man could not hope to create the most infamous nightclub in town and also juggle the responsibilities of some shadowy business in the background. No, that took someone with vision, someone with drive. His schedule was always packed and he probably ate his meals on the go, but he could always find time to make Vinyl suffer. 
Before Vinyl could get over her first kill, he came back into the room with another soldier. It felt like Bass Leader had only been out of the room for an instant, or it could have been hours. Vinyl couldn’t tell the difference, she was too busy sitting against the wall like a puppet whose strings had been cut, looking at the corpse and soaking in self-pity. This one had begged for his life after seeing his colleague’s body. He had a wife, child, and he might have even talked about his dog, but Vinyl tuned it out. She didn’t want to know the man she was about to unwillingly kill. When the man stopped ranting, Bass Leader gave her another pistol. Vinyl could only murmur apologies as she pulled the trigger. 
This time, Bass Leader did not walk out of the room. He examined the fresh corpse with a critical eye. It was as if he was not in a small room with two dead bodies and a pool of vomit. If he was wearing his suit jacket, Bass Leader would not have been out of place in an art gallery with a snifter in hand. Was this what this was all about? Bass Leader saw this as an art project? Vinyl dismissed the notion, but she could still hear him say, “The artist depicted them dying with a shot to the head because it was expedient,” or “It’s a shot to the head because the artist doesn’t like suffering.” If there was some artistic meaning behind this all, Vinyl had no doubts that someone would link it back to sexuality, like the gunshots to the head were a metaphor for vaginas and that men only ever think about sex. She could hear a critic say that.  
“You are either blocking it out or you’ve already steeled yourself,” Bass Leader said, breaking her thoughts. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. Get on your feet.” 
Confused, Vinyl shakily stood up. The empty pistol slipped from her grip and landed next to its counterpart. Bass Leader gestured towards the door. Vinyl got out as fast as she could. She was too happy to leave that room behind. 
She emerged into a dull, gray hallway. Bass Leader motioned to the left. “The Reclamation is a lumbering beast,” Bass Leader said from behind Vinyl. “They come in with their luminescent ships and storm homes within seconds, all while bearing a sign of peace. However, this works in our favor. The good general, she’s a perfectionist and absolutely loyal to the Empire. If Celestia told her she couldn’t eat anymore, she would probably sew her mouth shut. Because Celestia herself told Rainbow Dash to get every human, she is going to get every human. This provides us a great opportunity.” 
Bass Leader was being awfully talkative with the person he had been beating on twenty minutes ago. Vinyl’s gut twisted with unease. They reached an unmarked door and Bass Leader showed her through. “I trust that you recall our conversation about tools,” Bass Leader continued. Vinyl’s eyes widened when she saw an operating table in the middle of the room. She wanted to run out, but Bass Leader blocked the door and pushed her forward. 
“Yes, I thoroughly believe that you will be much more useful as a killer than a babysitter. You are a woman of action, not someone who can sit idly by.”  Bass Leader squeezed her shoulder as he pushed Vinyl closer to the table. “As fate would have it, I will soon require someone who won’t back down in a gunfight. All you need now,” he gestured to the table, “is the right hardware.” Without warning, he scooped Vinyl up and threw her on the table. Restraints were in place before she got her breath back. Bass Leader leaned over her, and she saw herself in his eyes again. She still looked pathetic. “You might think I’m doing this out of cruelty, but I am not. I just want to see my daughter again.” Then he was gone. The restraints prevented Vinyl from looking around the room, but she could hear the surgeons descending upon her. 

Not done out of cruelty. The thought somehow forced itself to the front of Vinyl’s mind. If she could, she felt like she would have laughed. But, thanks to a few injections, even thinking incoherently was a bit of a chore. The surgeons had left her body completely numb. 
A few giant machines lurched over her. Was that an organ or was she delirious? Aren’t organs important? Shouldn’t they be leaving that alone? No, she was simply hallucinating.
There was a few times where she saw a masked face, but they were gone in an instant. The bags dripping stuff into her were much more interesting. 
At least this was better than Bass Leader’s beatings. She couldn’t feel anything and she was lying down. Except this might be causing more damage than being ravaged.  
What’s that? Is that skin? It shouldn’t be opened like that, right? These were licensed surgeons, right? 
A person reached for her eyes. 
Pop! Her vision was gone. 
Who turned out the lights? Where did everything go? What’s that feeling? Is that a drill? Yep, that’s a drill. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
Pop! Her vision was back again. 
Modern medical engineering allowed her to be awake for all of it. Progress is great. 

Vinyl wasn’t stupid. Bass Leader’s plan was transparent. With all of the fancy hardware and the executions, he was trying to turn her into his little assassin girl. What was next? Was Bass Leader going to have his team of surgeons implant razor blades underneath her fingernails? Was she going to be called Steppin Razor by the bitter, bloody end? A chill crept up her spine and her arm twitched. Would she still be Vinyl Scratch? Would Octavia see the woman she liked or had her soul been torn out and replaced by some new kill chip? Vinyl wasn’t even sure if she could answer her own questions.  
Resistance was becoming difficult. She couldn’t have been under Bass Leader’s care for more than a day, but her aversion to… everything was fading. Bass Leader was winning. How did she know? Vinyl lowered the smoking pistol and only now became aware of the line of bodies she had just freshly executed. 
She didn’t even know who she was shooting anymore. Some of them didn’t even look like soldiers. That fat guy in a dirty suit couldn’t have given a single push up if his life depended on it. Maybe that’s the price he paid. Vinyl could see Bass Leader forcing the fat man into some sort of exercise. “Do it or I’ll feed you to my killer. She’ll be extra blood-thirsty,” Bass Leader would’ve said. Vinyl chuckled. At least she got some sort of reaction. 

The crowd grew. Soldiers would come in with some new arrival, some new face that either displayed anger or grief. Vinyl had said that some people had ran to the Solar Empire when the Reclamation started. They had placed complete trust within Celestia. Where were those people now? Did they feel regret or were they living on cloud nine? Octavia didn’t spend too much time thinking about it. Looking around, she guessed that people like that had dried up long ago and the soldiers were only collecting the dregs. 
Somewhere a child cried. Part of her wanted to go over and comfort him, but she was still too scared to be involved with anyone there. No one else paid the child any mind. Was she a bad person for isolating herself? 
Octavia took a deep breath and played with a string on her hoody. The soldiers had supplied beds and food, but nothing else to pass the time. Someone had brought in a pack of cards and there seemed to be a poker tournament going on, which occasionally resulted in a cheer, but she had no intentions of going over there. It hasn’t even been a day. How long are we going to stay here? Octavia wondered, drawing her legs up and resting her chin on her knees. 
She closed her eyes against the persistent headache she had since her arrival. It was probably an unhealthy combination of stress and lack of caffeine. I’ve been abducted and I’m thinking about coffee. How petty of you, Octavia, she thought and chuckled. It sounded like she was clearing her throat. 
As time passed, her legs were starting to hurt. She got off of her bed and paced around the hangar reluctantly. Most of the people ignored her, either too focused on the poker or their own misery to acknowledge someone else. The child was still crying, but she didn’t look at him as she passed. As she approached the gate, she heard two soldiers talking. 
“I hate this part,” one said. 
“I’m kind of getting used to it,” the other said. 
“That doesn’t sound like a good thing, man.” 
“Maybe not,” he said with a shrug, “but at least I’m able to sleep at night.” 
Octavia frowned and kept walking before she caught their attention. If the Reclamation wasn’t popular with the soldiers, why didn’t they tell their officers to fuck themselves? Octavia’s frown deepened when she realized Vinyl’s crude manners had rubbed off on her. She thought of the soldiers that came for her. 
They hadn’t been Hunters, she would have recognized their sleek armor. It had been normal soldiers, like the ones guarding her now. Maybe, hidden behind those blank faceplates, the soldiers had been ridden with guilt as they dragged her screaming down the hallway. 
She didn’t know much about the military outside of a few documentaries and terrible blockbusters that had been heralded as the greatest movies ever. She did know, however, that the soldiers she saw now were just grunts. Once they had been in the military long enough, and displayed the certain qualifications, they could be nominated to receive the specialized augments of a certain branch. So far, only Hunters had been seen. Considering their namesake and their mission, Octavia shouldn’t have been too surprised that the other two types, the stalwart Bruisers or the clever Magi, weren’t used too often in the Reclamation. Octavia wondered if the Reclamation was popular amongst the specialized soldiers, or if they shared the reservations of the grunts. Maybe General Rainbow Dash only relied on Hunters because she was one herself. 
Octavia yawned and sent a slight throb through her head. Looking at the windows up above, she figured it was getting close to dinner. She desperately wished to be gone.
A sudden thought slammed into her. What happened to Vinyl? The DJ was supposed to make sure Octavia wasn’t captured, but here she was, a guest to the Solar Empire in the finest warehouse in town. Vinyl had failed, and who knew how Bass Leader would react. Thoughts of Vinyl lying face down in an alley riddled with bullets, or being thrown off a bridge, or beaten to a pulp, all flashed before her. Octavia collapsed onto the nearest bed and found she had a few tears left. She willingly surrendered them to the concrete floor. Someone had moved to comfort the child, but no one came to her. She didn’t care.