//------------------------------// // Chapter 4B // Story: My World Is Empty Without You // by McPoodle //------------------------------// My World Is Empty Without You Chapter 4B Daring Do and Vinyl Scratch arrived at the final branch of the University Archives roughly a half hour before sunrise. The building was right across the Royal Plaza from the Canterlot Public library; if you followed the curve of the plaza two more buildings, you arrived at the entrance of the Palace, where the Chancellor’s plan to enslave the whole of ponykind to his clique was soon to be enacted. Daring ushered Vinyl to a spot out of the public eye and looked up with a sigh. “If I hadn’t had my wings stripped, I’d be flying you in through that open window on the third floor,” she informed her companion. “Are you any good at lockpicking? There’s a service door facing the alley.” “I’m afraid not,” Vinyl said. She walked up to the wall of the Archives and felt it until she reached the door. “Although… I don’t suppose you know any songs about breaking into a secure location?” “Would the theme from Con Mare count?” Vinyl chuckled as she reared up to examine the door lock with her hooves. To her surprise, the door swung wide open. “The latch is taped open,” she told Daring after a moment’s inspection. Daring sighed. “So, it’s obviously a trap,” she said. “Obviously.” * * * A few minutes of sneaking around revealed that the building, at least on the first floor, was abandoned. Thanks to its position alongside the Royal Plaza, there was more than enough light coming in through the windows—and the missing Fourth Wall—for Daring to see by. Vinyl of course didn’t need a light source. The only thing they couldn’t see clearly was a sign that had been taped to the elevator. Daring was about to remove the sign to walk over to a window when Vinyl tapped her on the withers. “Allow me,” she said. From Daring’s obstructed point of view, what appeared to happen next was Vinyl licking every inch of the sign. “Ew,” she noted quietly. Vinyl turned her head to point her muzzle at Daring. “I was using my lips to read the sign.” “Oh. What does it say?” “Out of order.” “I guess that’s what the stairs are for.” * * * The first floor had contained the main lobby, some meeting rooms, and a bunch of offices. All of the interior doors were not only unlocked, but also propped open. Closets were also open, and drawers were all pulled out, but nothing was disturbed. It was therefore trivial to determine that the Cruciform was not on that floor. The second floor was a library, made up of bookshelves separated by wide aisles. There was a row of reading rooms at one end, also with doors propped open. That even included the main door for entering the library from either the elevator or the stairs—that door had a pad next to it for scanning a pony’s magical field from their hoof, to ensure that only a select group of researchers would be able to access the forbidden tomes inside. “Somepony wants us to get this search over with,” Vinyl concluded. “Yeah,” Daring said, looking around and chewing her lower lip in thought. “I don’t suppose any of these books would be useful to us?” Vinyl frowned. “Well first of all, you came to Canterlot knowing 90% of everything there was to know about the Staff of Sameness, and we got the last 10% from Mauve Shadow and Crow’s Foot. And second, you wouldn’t be able to read one anyway.” She padded a nearby bookcase with a forehoof until she was able to pull out a random volume, and then presented its cover to Daring. It was too dark to read. As a matter of fact, the problem was that the letters on the cover were complete gibberish. That’s right, Rainbow thought to herself. You can’t read in a dream. “Come on,” Vinyl urged. “We’ve got one more floor, and time’s a wasting.” A memory was trying to make itself felt in Rainbow’s head. She saw an image of Vinyl Scratch, sitting on the top floor of the Golden Oaks library. The shelves were all bare, and the books that belonged in those shelves had fallen down to surround the DJ pony. She was desperately trying to find a book… or was it three books? “It’s probably just more books up there,” Daring said idly. With some concentration, Rainbow was able to recall more details: This was the first of the dreams they had been trapped in, the one created by Twilight Sparkle. Since Vinyl was taking Twilight’s place in the dream, Vinyl was able to see. The dream was about the return of Nightmare Moon. Vinyl… surrounded by books… she needed to use three specific books to convince the other ponies around her that they should go into the Everfree Forest with her, but because of the book collapse, she couldn’t find any of them. She had nearly lost hope until she thought of asking Pinkamena to find each one for her. To the magenta mare’s surprise, she was able to find each one. How was Pinkamena able to find each book if she couldn’t read the titles? Rainbow asked herself. For that matter, how was Vinyl able to read the books? Out of the corner of her eye, Rainbow saw one book that looked familiar, from before the war… One day Rainbow and her friends had traveled together to Canterlot to see the recording of Oars in Wells’ etheric show. The others had gone shopping in the common market that worked out of the Plaza on Canterdays. Rainbow had been looking for a good cloud to nap on when she happened to see none other than Oars himself picking through a used bookseller’s cart. The book he had chosen to buy that day had a bright orange cover, with a very unusual title… “Can we go?” Vinyl said in a small voice. “Something about this place is just… wrong.” Daring, who must have been thinking back on the vision of her father from earlier that day, shook herself out of her funk and turned to face the other pony. “Hey, you want to see a magic trick?” she asked with a broad smile. “That’s just the thing to lift your spirits. Pinkamena taught me this one.” While keeping her eyes fixed on Vinyl’s confused expression, Daring reached blindly behind and above her and managed to pull down a thick orange volume. She sat down, flipped open the cover, and used a hoof to quickly flick through the entire book in about ten seconds. “Here, catch!” And with that, she tossed the book right at Vinyl Scratch, who only just barely managed to not catch it with her face. “Hey, what was that for?” she demanded, her breath fogging up the protective coating on the spine. Daring shrugged. “It didn’t have any pictures,” she said by way of explanation. Vinyl didn’t know what Rainbow Dash was up to. She knew from experience that the only books a pony could “read” in a dream were those the dreamer actually had read. What kind of books would Fluttershy casually leave in a dream version of a top-secret library? She passed the spine of the book across her lip so quickly it nearly left a contact burn. It was hopefully fast enough for the dreamer not to notice, and fast enough to blur the mangled characters of the title back into something legible: Means By Which One May Control the Gods. It was almost certainly the book that Rarity and the Emperor had used to remove Pinkie Pie from the dream world. How in Celestia’s name could Fluttershy possibly have read this book? Vinyl Scratch froze. This wasn’t Fluttershy’s dream anymore. Or at least, not entirely her dream. “Over here,” Daring called out from the staircase. “I’ll bet you a hundred bits there’s just a bunch more boring books up there.” On reaching the top of the staircase, Vinyl was surprised when Daring, instead of going through the main door, instead walked up to the elevator. Vinyl stopped and held out a hoof to keep Daring from getting any closer. “The elevator door’s open, revealing an empty shaft leading all the way down to the ground,” she said. “Yeah,” said Daring. “How did you know?” “The breeze coming up and hitting us in the face. I felt something similar at the top of a box canyon.” “Doesn’t even have caution tape,” Daring said, pushing down Vinyl’s hoof to get a closer look. The bottom of the shaft was littered with small boulders, illuminated by a blood-red light that came into the shaft from what must have been a hole in the side opposite the closed doors on the first floor. A glance upwards confirmed that the elevator car was parked above them, probably poised to drop down at a moment’s notice. “Pretty obvious death trap, if you ask me,” Daring concluded. She then tapped at a black screen that was attached to the wall next to the opening. “While this looks like some more advanced unicorn tech.” “Why thank you! I designed it myself.” The screen now displayed the inside of a cramped office, with the rotund Oars in Wells squeezed into position behind the desk, looking right at a startled Daring. The walls behind him were made of plates of metal bolted crudely together. “Getting comfortable in your bunker, Chancellor Oars?” Daring asked with a smirk. “And you went to all the trouble of dropping your magic shield, just to talk to me! I should be honored.” Vinyl stepped over to join Daring in facing down the two-dimensional illusion. “Why are you doing all this?” she demanded. “You are already the most-powerful pony in the land. Isn’t that enough?” “No, it is not!” Oars tried to stand on his hind legs in hateful indignation, but he found that he was wedged behind his desk so snugly that the act was impossible. He instead settled for pounding the desktop with one hoof—it was not very impressive. “I have fought my whole life to earn the respect that was my due from birth! Even when I followed the ‘modern’ path to greatness, by taking the Etheric from a forgotten utility into high art with elaborate machines of my own creation, still I was mocked! The nobles declared my work beneath their notice!” He leaned towards the glass, a look of Discordian malice upon his brow. “Those same nobles are crammed together in the next room, thinking they’ll get a share of my ultimate power. None of them have the wit to realize that the magical field extends to this room, and this room alone. Today, I will attain my destiny! Starting today, I and I alone will have the power to decide who lives and who dies! And nopony will ever have the power to hurt me, ever again!” He punctuated this pronouncement by pounding the desktop several times with his hoof. At this point Oars suddenly realized how loud and melodramatic he had been getting, and took a deep breath to calm himself. “But enough about me,” he said with a smile. “I’m here to personally oversee your doom, Daring Do.” Daring glanced over at a wall-mounted clock. “You better make this quick, then—you only have fifteen minutes until sunrise.” “Oh, the timetable is going exactly as expected,” Oars replied, his slightly-tinny voice dripping with smugness. “Including your presence at this particular time and place. You see, I’ve had you followed this whole time, and I had several individuals planted in select locations throughout the city to feed you the locations of the three annexes.” “So, the others are in danger as well!” Vinyl concluded. She tried in vain to think of a way to warn or help them before it was too late. Oars tapped his forehooves together lightly and rolled his eyes in a faux-innocent manner. “Well… Darai is probably done for, without her ‘special friend’ to help her out. But I know better than to put either Brass Quill or Cricket Fly in a corner, so I left strict instructions to leave them alone.” “I think you’ll find that ‘Darai’ is far more capable than you might think,” Daring stated with complete confidence. With a knowing grin, she added, “But then, that was a mistake you made before, isn’t it?” Rainbow was referring to Rarity, a pony Oars had once dismissed as a “damsel in distress”. That damsel later broke out of her dream and then talked the Dragon Emperor into sending her back in. Once she got her wish, she used the opportunity to train the others on how to fight him in their upcoming final confrontation. “Perhaps,” Oars admitted with reluctance, staring down at the collection of folders stacked atop his desk. “I don’t have a file on her.” He then opened the top folder on the stack. “But I do have a folder on you, Vinyl Scratch.” He put on a pair of spectacles as he examined the pages inside. Vinyl silently pushed her way forward. “Born to the noble Tempo family of Canterlot in the 10th of Winter in the Year 6892 of the Celestial Era,” Oars recited from the piece of paper he held up with his levitation. He put the paper down and tapped his round chin with a hoof. “Note to self: Start Year 1 of the New Era in about… thirteen minutes.” Looking back at the page, he continued. “Believed to be the only naturally-blind pony in the history of Equestria. Committed to the Manehattan Sanitorium for the Insane on her fifth birthday by her parents. The admitting diagnosis was recorded as violent schizophrenia, but we both know the real reason, don’t we?” He looked up to see Vinyl’s traumatized expression and continued remorselessly. “They stuck you in there to get rid of you, and the effect you were having on the ‘family reputation’. After all, if Princess Celestia has made this the ‘best of all possible worlds’, and the respected Tempos have given birth to a freak, then surely that can only be seen as a rebuke of the highest caliber.” How? Vinyl asked herself in shock. How could Fluttershy possibly know? “You’ve said enough,” Daring said sternly, putting a hoof around a shaking Vinyl’s withers. “Is this…? This is too much, it’s not believable,” Fluttershy said, wondering why she was being so cruel to her friend’s fictional past. But as she touched the corrective fluid bottle, Angel’s paw was there, and he was staring into her eyes. Slowly, Fluttershy looked back into the page, where more of Oars’ dialog was being written without her help. Her hoof shaking ever so slightly, she turned and rejoined the flow, filling in both Daring Do and Vinyl. “But I’m just getting to the good part!” Oars retorted jovially. “For eight years, she was continually attacked by her fellow inmates for her ‘unnatural nature’, with the staff doing nothing to help her until the night of Spring 13, 6906, when events of an unknown nature caused a severe psychological break, creating at least seven new personalities and giving her her cutie mark.” Oars fished another page from Vinyl’s file to continue his tale: “One of these personalities, PON-3, was measured to have a genius level I.Q. It was almost certainly she who orchestrated the escapes on Harvest 32, 6908 of both Vinyl Scratch and her new friend Octavia Melody, admitted to the Sanitorium a week earlier for mental exhaustion. Vinyl, or probably PON-3 pretending to be Vinyl, then won an impressive string of court cases that not only buried all public documentation of Vinyl’s disability, but also had her declared a legal adult, and 100% sane. “From there, she became a significant inventor in the field of audio electronics, and as DJ-P0N3, became Equestria’s first disk jockey.” “Is there a point to all this?” Vinyl said wearily. “I just wanted to make sure that Daring Do knew the true nature of the pony she’s currently entrusting her life with. Oh, and let me add this last bit: One day after the start of the Second Pony-Dragon War, she enlisted into the ranks of the Morale Corps.” Oars put down the page he had been consulting, as well as his spectacles. Taking a monogrammed hoofkerchief out of his breast pocket, he used a hoof and his magic to polish the lenses. Still looking down, he said, “You know, members of the Morale Corps are frequently kept out of the public eye, both to carry out secret missions for the Crown… and to submit themselves to experiments, experiments that are then carefully erased from their memories afterwards. Do you want to take a guess as to which experiment we performed on you, Vinyl Scratch?” Vinyl began to back away from the screen. “Stay away from me,” she warned. “Especially you, Daring!” “Oh but Vinyl, you need to do your duty,” Oars cooed, relishing his upcoming triumph. “The persimmons are in bloom, and Daring Do is a traitor to the Crown!” Vinyl screamed in anguish, clutching her head with her hooves. “N…o! I won’t let you!” she cried. Daring positioned herself with her back against a windowed wall, away from the elevator shaft and away from Vinyl Scratch, who she judged was soon to lose the battle against her implanted personality. She saw the shadows growing around the unicorn, and instinctually ducked as four pegasi burst through the window behind her. “That’s the traitor!” the image of Oars in Wells shouted in a panicked voice, pointing a hoof at Daring Do. The image was replaced with a recording caught on a shaky motion picture camera. It showed a grim Daring Do, staring straight at the viewer. “Dragon Emperor, I hear and obey your order to kill Chancellor Oars before sunrise, and that is what I’m going to do.” She raised in her hooves the Cruciform of Diversity, which cracked with arcane energy. “The same way I already killed Princesses Luna and Celestia.” Oars in Wells was a master of stage magic and illusions. The former included the ability to impersonate any voice, and the combination of the latter and having members of his acting ensemble that were practically identical to each one of the Bearers made this forgery easy to accomplish. Daring prepared herself to face off against Oars’ soldiers, but froze on realizing that they were all Wonderbolts. “That’s… that’s not fair…” she whimpered. Soarin’ stepped forward. Like the other Wonderbolts, he was shocked by the confession he had just witnessed. “Daring Do, you are under arrest.” “No!” the Chancellor demanded. “For her treason, she must be thrown into the pit!” The elevator shaft briefly glowed red. Spitfire, having taken longer than her lieutenant to recover from what she had seen, stepped before the glass. “Begging your pardon, Chancellor, but shouldn’t she be put on trial? The nation is going to want to see the face of one who did something… this vile.” To look of disgust she shot Daring was enough to make her feel physically ill. Oars sighed. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” he intoned. “Now carry out my order!” A dark look washed over the eyes of the four Wonderbolts. “We hear and obey!” they proclaimed in unison. And before Daring had managed to get past them to reach the stairway down, they pounced on her. Daring fought desperately against her enemies, the whole time muttering under her breath: “Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making me attack my heroes?” But not only did they outnumber her, but they were trained for years to work and fight together as a team, and besides, they could fly and she could not. Finally, they were able to drag her over to be positioned right in front of the entrance to the open elevator shaft, two holding her by each trio of limbs (arm, wing and leg). Daring looked up, to see a stern Vinyl Scratch charging up her horn, facing the ground. “Please… no…” she begged. Vinyl raised her head, her expression completely impassive. “Death to the traitor,” she decreed, and with a blast of magic, Daring was sent tumbling down the shaft. & & & The fall took only a few seconds, but to Daring it seemed an eternity. She did everything in her power, first to slow her fall, and then to avoid striking the sharpest of the rocks which had been positioned at the bottom of the shaft. When she finally struck, the pain was excruciating. Daring cried out in agony. From the shadows that were in the four corners of the shaft emerged familiar figures: Dr. Cabelleron and his three henchponies. Daring tried to get up, but found she could neither move nor feel her back legs. She hoped that Cabelleron would spout some sort of triumphal speech long enough for her to plan some form of escape. Instead the four surrounded her and, with a quiet signal, jumped upon her body multiple times, trying their best to break the rest of Daring’s bones. Daring did not cry out in pain any longer. She did not curse or taunt her enemies. She just accepted her fate with a look of utter hopelessness. When it became clear that she was no longer physically capable of fighting back, the attackers stopped, with the exception of Rough Stuff, who could not resist the temptation to throw in one last kick in the ribs. The foursome then picked Daring Do up onto their shoulders, carrying her like an honored corpse. Slowly, they made their way towards the blood-red light pouring in from a giant hole in the wall. Daring looked not into the red light and into the place where she would meet her final fate. She looked at me. She looked at me like she could see me, and then she said, “I’m sorry, Fluttershy. I’m sorry that you have to see this. I told you at Flight Camp that I would never turn against you, and I never break a promise. I forgive you.”