//------------------------------// // Chapter V3: Bargaining // Story: [Redacted] // by McPoodle //------------------------------// [Redacted] - Chapter V3: Bargaining - Two Days Ago Vinyl wandered the streets for several minutes, trying to come to terms with what she had heard. Even in her scattered state of mind, she kept her mental map of Canterlot before her at all times, and the ponies in her path let her by with quiet comments to each other at her emotional state that they thought she couldn’t overhear. Finally, on a quiet street corner, she stopped and turned to the pony who had been following her. “How much did you know?” she asked. “Some,” admitted DJ AJ4X. “Not much.” “How does he do it?” she mused mostly to herself. “How does the Emperor ‘over-ride’ somepony?” “I...I don’t know.” Neither of them said anything for a couple of minutes. “Are you going to be alright?” he asked. Vinyl exhaled loudly and nodded her head. “You’ll find I’m made of sterner stuff than that. So...um, where is this place you’ve picked out for me to stay? I was thinking of staying with my friend Octavia.” “Octavia’s Ensemble is in Fillydelphia,” said the earth stallion DJ. “And I know that she rented out her room to a couple of music students.” “OK,” Vinyl said. “And I suppose Rarity’s penthouse apartment and the palace are also taken.” “I’m afraid so. However, Rarity’s friend Pinkie Pie arranged a place for my eventual assistant to stay as soon as she heard I was asking for one. Follow me.” The two ponies worked their way far from the palace, into the bowels of the lower city. Finally they reached an open area at the edge of town. The smell, for somepony as sensitive as Vinyl Scratch, took some getting used to, but she supposed she’d adjust eventually. “This was a place where visiting caravans would park their wagons and trailers while they did their business up above,” explained DJ AJ4X. “Eventually those that failed to get what they wanted from the Princess moved into their trailers, and this came to be known as a ‘trailer park’.” He produced two keys from his saddlebags and unlocked the door of one of the trailers with one of them. “This is where you will be staying, and here is a spare, just in case. It’s one of the bigger of the trailers, and certainly the most-comfortable of the ones I’ve been able to examine.” Vinyl quietly walked through the three rooms of the trailer and listened to make sure the elevated floor wouldn’t crack open any time soon. It seemed sound enough. “There’s something else,” the stallion said. “Follow me.” He led her to the center of the “park”. By the sounds and feel of the objects they walked over, Vinyl judged that this area was used as a sort of communal junk heap. She wondered what could possibly be worth visiting here until she heard a couple of reedy notes forming a discordant mixture. She pushed her way forward to place her hoof beside where AJ4X had just pressed. “A dragon organ!” she exclaimed. A few touches revealed that, although it was far from being in tune, it was not so far gone as to be unsalvageable. “Pinkie told me you’d like it,” AJ4X said with satisfaction. Vinyl Scratch suddenly turned on him. “She said that I, specifically, would like it?” “Oh, well no, of course not!” the other pony backpedaled. “How could either of us possibly know who would get the job of my assistant? I put out the ad a week and a half ago, Pinkie gave me the key a couple days later, and now here you are, the first DJ to enlist after my request was approved and circulated. Pinkie just told me that whatever pony I got, would love the organ.” Vinyl pressed a single key and held it down. “Tell me, AJ4X, is that a pleasing note to you?” “Ah, well, I’m sure if you take it in context...” “Be honest with me. Does this sound good to you?” “Ah...no. To be brutally honest, I’ve never seen the attraction in dragon music. Could...could you stop playing? That note is putting my teeth on edge.” Vinyl removed her hoof from the keyboard. “Exactly. I am the only DJ I know with an appreciation of dragon music.” “And that means...?” Vinyl paused. She had heard from Twilight Sparkle what happened to those who had come too close to figuring out how Pinkie Pie works. She sighed. “It means Pinkie Pie was being random,” she said. There, Universe, she added mentally. Are you happy now? Nothing fell on her head, so she took that as a “yes”. It was still several hours before Pon-3 and AJ4X would begin their hosting duties for the night, so Vinyl sent her boss home while she played a few dragon folksongs on the organ. She then went around the trailer park to introduce herself to any pony willing to answer a polite knock at their door. “Zip does not have time for your foolish games, Dib,” came the voice of one who did not wish to answer his door. “Go home and think of another plan which is DOOMED to fail.” Vinyl then heard the sound of a blowtorch being ignited inside the house and a hammer being pounded on something metallic. “That tickles!” cried out the high-pitched and slightly-distorted voice of a little diamond dog. Vinyl grinned in recognition. “Don’t bother to put yourself together, Zip Perturb,” she told him through the door. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m your next door neighbor. A word of advice, though: we ponies dearly love our puns. So this Dib fellow, whoever he is, is guilty of foalish games, not foolish ones.” She turned to walk away, but as she suspected, the sound of a raised curtain was quickly followed by the frantic sounds of somebody putting on an elaborate costume that involved one really long zipper, followed by the sudden unbolting and opening of the front door. “Vinyl Scratch!” exclaimed the occupant. “What brings you to this miserable corner of Canterlot? Is it perhaps to visit the humble abode of the Almighty Zip?” Vinyl turned with a laugh. “That speaking in the third person business reminds me of somepony else who lived in a trailer,” she remarked. “How did you like my playing?” “So that was the, err, sound that I heard. Sound which, as a foalish pony, Zip has no interest in whatsoever!” Vinyl laughed once again. From what she had been able to observe, she doubted that Zip’s pony disguise fooled anypony who saw it. And as a pony capable of distinguishing species and breed by voice alone, that disguise might as well be made of clear glass. “Of course, Zip, of course,” she said. Zip closed the space between then. “So is it true what Zip has been told, that you are a blind pony?” he asked her quietly. Vinyl lowered herself to her knees to be at his level. “Why don’t you see for yourself?” she challenged him. Zip paused for a few moments, and then reached out and lifted her sunglasses. Neither of them said anything for nearly a minute. In Vinyl’s mind, this alone would have been proof of Zip’s true nature, for no pony could stand to look beneath those glasses for so long. “I know not of pony magic,” Zip said as he replaced her glasses, “but the dragons are capable of transforming pearls into new eyes. When this...foalish war is over, you should think about approaching them on this matter. Zip might know one or two dragon wizards you could ask.” Vinyl got back to her feet. “I’ve learned to live with what I was born with, Zip. You may label that a strength, or a weakness. Now then, where are your guardians?” Zip quickly retreated until his back was to the front door of his trailer. “They, err...they are on a business trip. Yes. They have business to do, and will return when that business...had been brought to a business-like conclusion.” Vinyl frowned. Fire Engine and Eggplant Perturb were far more competent at this “dragon pretending to be a pony” business than Zip was, and without them there was a very real chance that the little egomaniac could get himself exposed. “Zip, if you’re in trouble, tell me about it. I can help.” “You’re asking Zip to trust you? A miserable little ponyling?” “Watch it, squirt,” she said jokingly, easily towering over him. He was only a baby dragon inside that suit, after all. “Why should Zip trust you?” he asked. “I’ve known you for what...a year? Compared to my...err...some pony’s lifetime, that is nothing! Come back in ten years, and then we can talk.” “Ha!” exclaimed Vinyl. “You remind me of me, when I was...a year younger. Wow,” she suddenly realized, “time really flies in the vicinity of the Gang of Six. I’ll pass on one of the lessons I learned from them: everypony deserves the right to at least prove whether they are deserving or not of your trust. Anyway, you probably have no need for this advice whatsoever, coming as it does from a ‘squishy mammal’, but I stumbled across a nearly-complete set of electromagical capacitors near the left side of that dragon organ. Just the thing for repairing a broken robotic pet. Not that I would know anything about such a thing, of course. Goodnight, noble steed.” Zip stared silently at Vinyl’s retreating back, before sneaking after her and stopping at the organ to look for those capacitors. The parties that night were some of the most-intense that DJ Pon-3 had ever hosted. The dance floor was thick with ponies, grooving their hearts out. None of them wanted any of the slow songs either, just fast music to dance mindlessly to. Like any good DJ, Pon-3 prided herself on her near-mystical bond with her dancers, and these seemed to desperately suck the life and vitality out of her and each other. They needed to be reassured that life was worth living. At the same time as Pon-3 was working the records and the CDs, Vinyl Scratch was listening to the Etheric. Playing at this time of night was a government-sponsored program: “Deeds of the Noble Steeds”. She heard about a shy pony who faced down a dragon after all of her friends failed, before his smoke could make her town unlivable. She heard about another pony who had overcome her own insecurities to accomplish her signature stunt at a competition, but only as a way to save the life of a friend who had mistakenly put her in her funk in the first place. A third story was about a silly pony who was the only one who knew the solution to a plague that threatened to destroy the livelihoods of everypony in town, especially after the brainy pony had completely lost her marbles. Of course Vinyl Scratch knew instantly which ponies were the inspirations for these stories. She only hoped that these sorts of stories were enough to combat the rising tide of panic and hopelessness she felt in the ponies DJ Pon-3 played her music for. Afterwards, Vinyl Scratch stumbled home. It was only a few hours before sunrise. She was fitting the key into the lock of her new home when she heard some other ponies pounding on a thin door, threatening to break it down. “Open up in the name of the law!” one of them commanded. It was the door to Zip’s trailer. “We got you now, Zip!” exclaimed the nerdy voice of a unicorn colt. Dib, Vinyl was willing to bet. “Can I help you, officers?” Vinyl asked, after having raced up beside them. “Do you know the individual who lives in this trailer, Madame?” one of the royal guard officers asked. “I do,” she said quietly. “And do you know that he’s secretly a reptile?” sneered Dib. “Huh? Huh? Huh?” Vinyl dearly hoped that Dib would never be selected by a superior race as a random representative of Equestria to determine the survival of the planet, because in that case, they were all surely doomed. “What a curious assertion!” she exclaimed with mock cheer. “He is a dragon!” exclaimed Dib. “And don’t try to tell me that he’s one of those exiled dragons that oppose the Emperor! He’s living among ponies instead of his own kind, and he’s in disguise like he’s afraid that some dragon will hunt him down--that proves that he must be a loyal subject of the Emperor!” Dib and Logic were apparently not well-acquainted. “Really!” Vinyl exclaimed. “I’m telling the truth! You just have to look at him!” Vinyl raised an eyebrow as she caught an easy way out. She pulled out the morale officer credentials that AJ4X had issued to her and presented them to the two guards. “Officers, I have met Zip Perturb, and he is not a threat to Equestria. In fact, I am absolutely certain that, to my eyes, he doesn’t look like a dragon at all.” “That sounds good enough to me,” one of the guards remarked to the other. “Besides, what kind of spy would live in a dump like this?” “You try this kind of stunt again without proof and we’ll be hauling you in instead,” the other one warned Dib before they turned to leave. “This is not finished, Zip!” Dib vowed. At that moment, a clay shingle fell off of the roof of the trailer and fell on Dib’s head. “Ow!” he exclaimed, retreating. “Why...does he have such a big head?” asked the faint voice of Zip’s dog. Vinyl heard a window on the trailer being opened, so she walked up to it. “Why did you do that?” a bewildered Zip asked her. His voice sounded much clearer than she had ever heard it before, leading her to suspect that he might actually be out of his suit. “These ponies are treating dragon sympathizers as badly as they are innocent dragons. You could have gotten yourself arrested!” Vinyl stood up tall. “The day I let a pipsqueak like that Dib colt order the Royal Guard around is the day I turn in my pony citizenship card,” she said proudly, and then turned and walked away. It was an incredibly lame excuse. And “lame excuses” were practically Zip’s second language. Vinyl returned to her trailer, drew the blinds, and quickly fell asleep. Within an hour she had been awakened by her usual nightmare. With a sigh, she got up and started exploring the trailer’s tiny kitchen. She found it well stocked with the sorts of foods that Pinkie Pie might consider essential. She found that one of the few foods that wouldn’t rot her teeth was a container of nonfat milk, so she heated some up on the stove in hopes of soothing her jangled nerves. As she waited for the warm drink to take its effect, she idly tuned into the Canterlot Etheric Network. “Oars in Wells presents Chapter Five of Citizen Kravitz” the magical voice of the Etheric said in her head. Vinyl sat up. Kravitz was one of the seminal figures in the history of dragon music. He was also the court composer to the first dragon to unite their warring tribes 6500 years ago: Emperor Reznicek. “I remember the first time I set eyes upon Reznicek’s court,” said the voice of an elderly actor stallion. “Loyal Kravitz,” said the stately voice of Oars in Wells himself. “Your Imperial Majesty,” replied the actor playing Kravitz. Wells was playing the First Emperor. Given the size of his ego, this was hardly surprising to Vinyl. She also noticed the song being played by the court orchestra: the Waltz from Masquerade, which strictly-speaking would not be composed for another five years at this point in the story. “I need your advice and counsel,” said “Emperor Reznicek”. “My subjects present me with their problems instead of their praise. I have sent them all to the ice mines of Thembria to die slow horrible deaths, but now I have no subjects to dig up my gems. What do you suggest?” “You could bring them back.” “What do you suggest that will not end with you joining them?” “I suggest that you make some more dragons.” “What an excellent suggestion. I knew I kept you around for some reason.” Vinyl tuned out the station in disgust. This was far beneath Wells’ normal class of work. And even as clumsy anti-dragon propaganda, it was all wrong. Reznicek’s history was littered with plenty of atrocities, many of them with direct parallels to the current situation, so there was no possible reason to attach this old tale to him. And the line about “creating more dragons” was completely out of place. Reznicek was no god, and certainly could not make more of his kind. As a matter of fact, this was pretty-much identical with part of the old “Lunar Republic” deception, the one that claimed that Princess Celestia was a tyrant who had banished an innocent Luna to the Moon for suggesting that she relinquish some of her power to the ponies. The deception had persisted from its birth a few hundred years after the imprisonment, all the way up to Nightmare Moon’s return, when the facts had pretty definitely refuted it. The unicorn didn’t like the direction that these thoughts led her, so she got up and walked outside for some night air. In these predawn hours, the trailer park was utterly quiet. Beyond the city limits, an owl hooted. Having decided to share her suspicions on Oars in Wells with her fellow morale officer when she met him next, Vinyl turned to return to her home. “Beautiful majestic Luna of the Night most serene, please hear my prayer.” It was the voice of Zip Perturb from the roof of his home and for him, it was rather quiet. Vinyl wasn’t sure if it was right of her to listen in on this. Prayers are very private things. But on the other hoof, he was clearly in need of her help to resolve whatever problem her guardians appeared to be in. And given that Luna was probably on a battlefield right now tens of thousands of pony-lengths away, it seemed unlikely that she would be the one to answer the poor dragon’s pleas. “Please keep Fire Engine and Eggplant safe. Please help them to keep clear heads, because they sure can be dumb sometimes. Oh, and never let them know that I called them ‘dumb’. But you know everything, so it’s OK telling you the truth. Lend me your strength, Luna. Well, not all of it, you need a lot for this war, but a little would be nice. Grant me the cleverness to fix GIP, because without him I don’t know how I’ll be able to get through this. “Your night is so beautiful, Luna. Its beauty sustains me through my trials and tribulations. And its stars are all the wealth I could ever need. May the friendship of these ponies keep me from the greed that stirs within the heart of every dragon. May I continue to prove myself worthy of your protection and your sovereignty. Amen.” After waiting for Zip to open a hatch in his roof and return inside, Vinyl walked silently into her trailer for a few moments, then walked over to Zip’s door and slipped the spare key under the welcome mat. The key had her trailer’s number on it, so she knew he would know who it came from. She hoped in this way to spare him another dose of the terror he must have gone through when he had heard the royal guard pounding on his door. She was walking past the organ when she heard a sudden strumming sound in the air. She cocked her head up and tried to find the source of the sound. Ponies poured out of the other trailers, including Zip in his disguise. They all gathered in the center with Vinyl. “There it is!” one of them exclaimed, directing his voice skyward. “The U.F.O.!” declared another. The others had the advantage of Vinyl, in that they could actually see it. All she could tell was that it was big and made a loud noise. It used no magic that she could detect (not that she was especially good at detecting magic) and yet also failed to generate any kind of exhaust like a non-magical machine would be expected to produce. “What do they want?” Zip asked in wonder.