Vinyl places her hand on the window and she began to pant out of fear. “Where the hell am I?” She said as she gazed out the window. Vinyl presses the button again and closed the blast shield over the window. “This definitely isn’t Ponyville…”
Vinyl jumped at the sound of a groan from the corner of the room followed by a loud gasp. Vinyl turns to see a visage of a young woman sitting up in a bed on the other side of the room. The woman’s creamy white Skin was offset by her dark grey hair and purple eyes. Vinyl turns and backs herself into a corner, looking at the woman across the room. Vinyl was confused and scared; she has no idea what she was looking at. But she has the poking feeling in the back of her head that she knows her, like they have been friends forever. Vinyl brushes a lock of her hair out of her face and looks closer at the woman, slowly starting to realize who it is.
“Octavia…?” she asks hesitantly. The young woman looks at her and nearly jumps out of her skin and backs against the wall.
“What are you!? Please don’t hurt me!” She yells looking away from Vinyl, showing noticeable panic and confusion in her eyes.
“Octy it’s me Vinyl! Chill out!” Vinyl replies, holding up her hands to show she meant no harm.
Octavia looks at her again recognizing the voice. That blue and cyan stripped hair, those bright red eyes. It could be no one else. Octavia sits up straight and looks closer “Vinyl, it is you!” a smile spreads across her face. “Wait…what are you, and where are we?”
Vinyl was dressed in an almost skin tight sleeveless top that had a small bandolier that crossed her chest. “To both questions” Vinyl paused before gazing down at her hand, before slowly closing her fingers and making a fist. “…I have no Idea.”
Octavia looks down at her strange appendages and slowly eases herself off the bed. She stood for a moment, trying to keep herself steady on her new set of legs.
“What are those things?” Vinyl asks pointing at Octavia’s legs with a slight puzzled expression.
Octavia looks down at her new legs and gives an equally puzzled look. “I assume they are some form of hind legs…” She put her bottom half on the ground first before she, decided to fall forward getting on all fours.
Vinyl shakes her head slightly “I don’t think that’s how those work Octy…” Vinyl moves to the edge of her bed and puts her legs down on the floor before she takes a deep breath and pushes herself up off the bed attempting to stand. She stands half way up then fell back down on the bed. Vinyl chuckled and tried again this time making it all the way up, she flails her arms trying to keep her balance.
She finally found her center and plopped down on her heels standing still. She stood tall around 5’10”, wearing a black sleeveless tank top like shirt that covered down all the way past her breasts to her naval, a short skirt like garment over a set of leggings that covered her down to her calves, and a set of black boots that shined with metal plates. Now that she was standing you could see the full length of her hair, it stretched down all the way to the middle of her back.
“I don’t know what I am, but I kind of like it.” Vinyl says as she looks down at Octavia and stretches out her hand. Octavia grips Vinyl’s hand and Vinyl struggles to keep her balance and pulls Octavia up from the floor, when she is finally up and on her feet. They both step back and look at each other.
Octavia was wearing some sort of light armor that encompassed her upper body wrapped in a black cloak with a hood, her legs were covered by a set of combat pants and boots that were covered, (except for the knees and other jointed areas) with metal plating.
“Wow Octy…you look like a guard from Canterlot Castle.” Vinyl says as she leans in closer for a better look.
“Vinyl you look like…like…I don’t know what you look like. I have never seen any kind of dress like that.” Octavia replies.
Vinyl begins to look around the room, It’s small, but enough for two people to stand up in comfortably. Octavia walks over and crawls over Vinyl’s bed and looks out the window, seeing where they were. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of it. “Vinyl, what is all that out there?” Octavia asks her just for conformation.
“Octy, that’s space out there.” Vinyl responded after a slight pause.
“What are we doing in space!?” she asks, breaking the pause as she quickly backs away from the window and back onto her feet.
“Beats me Octy…do you remember anything before we woke up here?” Octavia and Vinyl both stand there thinking.
After a moment Octavia finally spoke “I remember a bright red glow, then just nothing but complete darkness…” Octavia pauses before placing her palm on her forehead, her mind straining from remembering. “…then I woke up here.”
Vinyl lets out a sigh and nods her head “That’s about all I remember too. Well we aren’t gonna get anywhere just standing around, let’s get outta here and look around.” Vinyl says as she walks toward what she assumes is the door.
The door is devoid of a door knob, only thing there is a small panel with a few buttons on it. Vinyl looks at the small panel slowly raises her hand as is if to push it
“Vinyl, be careful. We don’t know what it does.” Octavia adds with a tone of caution.
Vinyl pushes her index finger against a green button on the panel and it does nothing, only a small beep in response. Vinyl purses her lips then presses the button again, and again. She presses it one final time and the door suddenly slides open, filling the room with a blinding light.
Their eyes took time to adjust, having been in the dimly lit room. Vinyl’s eyes finally adjusted, and she was confronted by an armored black Figure that stands roughly another 4 inches taller than her.
Vinyl, and Octavia quickly stand up straight and looks the figure directly in the eye slots that they assumed were his eyes.
“Um…Hiyah..” Vinyl says with a nervous smile and gives a small wave. Octavia gives a weak smile as the figure draws up his weapon is response and points it at the two. “Out, at once…” the figure ordered as he backed away from the entrance and gestured for them to exit, pointing with the front of his rifle. Now that he was in the light of the hallway they could see that this…whatever it was. Vinyl’s heart skipped a beat then picked up speed. Her stomach sank and her hands shook from fear. Octavia stood behind Vinyl peering from over her shoulder. What were these things? The way they acted, they acted like soldiers of some sort. If they were soldiers Vinyl knew that the best course of action was to comply. “Out in the hall now!” the soldier barks at them through his helmet’s speaker. So, Vinyl takes a deep breath and puts her hands in the air and takes her first, slightly wobbly steps into the hall. Octavia made sure to stay close behind her. Once in the hall, the soldier positioned himself behind them as another soldier, dressed in grey clothes with an Odd looking Cap on his head, places security binders on their wrists. Obliviously this soldier dressed in grey was different, his clothes seemed to symbolize that he was of Higher rank and position that the armored soldier, an Officer. Vinyl struggles for a moment to get them off then she looks up at the soldier and sneers.
Octavia doesn’t resist but sighs, “Oh Dear…” she says with worry and fright in her voice.
The soldier pushes Octavia forward shoving her forward into Vinyl “Follow him.” The soldier ordered as the officer in front of Vinyl started to walk forward down the hallway. Vinyl and Octavia look around taking in their environment. As they pass through an area that has a large observation window to their left they look out, and see not only a space, but a there were things also floating in space.
They were on a ship, and there wasn’t just one ship. They were in the middle of a fleet. Vinyl nods her head gesturing out the window with her head “Octy Look!”
Octavia turns her head to see out of the window and her eyes go wide with amazement and at the same time fear “I think it’s safe to say we aren’t in Equestria anymore…” she replies. Yes, they were sure.
Vinyl looked down and swallowed. She had to think, if they were here… did the rest of Equestria come with them? Were they alone? Was there any way to get help from anyone? So many questions ran through her head as she gazed out of that window into the infinite sea of space. If they were going to find out anything, they had to get out of this first.
From behind they heard someone else walk up. It wasn’t the trooper; it sounded heavy, with a grinding that made them cringe a little. Vinyl turns her head to see someone wearing a different set or armor than either the soldier or the officer. This armor was a sky-blue color with flecks and streaks; made of all the colors of the rainbow. Behind the rainbow-colored figure loomed a tall, menacing creature. It was like nothing that she had ever seen: a mass of metal and whirling joints that sent shivers down her spine and put a deep pit in the center of her stomach. It looked right at Vinyl with narrow orange eyes that pierced her very soul. Suddenly, it spoke to her with a distorted mechanical voice “Statement: Greetings, meatbags.”
Vinyl raised a brow at the creature ‘Meatbags?’ she thinks to herself. Could that be what she and Octavia had turned into? This was the first answer they had gotten all day. She was finally happy to know what they were finally. Suddenly the blue armored creature turns to the soldier leading them and starts to talk “Officer, Lord Santus needs you on the bridge, both of you.” The voice was filtered, coming through the speaker on her helmet.
Vinyl blinked and looked the creature over, that voice…it sounded as if she had heard it so many times before, and those colors… Those colors that spread over her armor, who was this?
“What I didn’t get any message about this, what’s this about?” questioned the soldier.
“Beats me, I’m just here to collect the creds for these two and move on. But she seemed very angry. I suggest you hurry. You don’t want what happened to your superior to happen to you.” The officer seemed to jump back in fear and he nodded his head at the soldier behind Octavia and they both head down the hall in a hurry.
Now Vinyl and Octavia were alone and with this stranger and her companion. But Vinyl had a creeping feeling that they were safer with this stranger than the guards.
“Query: Can we dispense with the trickery, Master? I wish to initiate assassination protocols as quickly as your feeble meatbag body, can manage.” said the companion.
The stranger quickly gave an agitated growl and turned to her companion, who didn’t even flinch when it started poking him in the face "HEY! Who you callin' feeble, bub!?" she yelled. Whatever it was, it just stood there as if it wasn’t alive. "I--I mean, look, that's not the mission HK. It's a search and RESCUE mission. Not a search and destroy."
Vinyl looked at them with a brow raised ‘Search and Rescue? Wait, are they here for me and Octy?’ she thinks
“Statement: Then I suggest we get to the rescue portion of this mission before we are discovered. Master Harvest is already in route with our escape vehicle.” replied the companion now known as HK.
“Yeah Yeah Im gettin’ to that…” The stranger turns to them and removes Vinyl’s and Octavia’s binders, leaving them on but loosened.
“Oh goodness, thank you, those were killing me.” Octavia says rubbing her wrists.
Vinyl rubs her wrists and smiles “Thanks Bud, mind giving us some answers?”
HK’s head switches its position from looking at its master to looking at Vinyl. “Agitated Statement: Master I seem to remember telling you that you had the stun on your Blaster set too high. It would seem that Master Vinyl is having memory issues. She does not seem to remember her own plan.”
“I didn’t have it up too high; it was just enough to put them down while I stole the data and planted the virus.” She replied and reached onto her belt taking off two long cylinder shaped objects. These were strange looking, and were long, each of them had a red button on them. That for some reason Vinyl just wanted to push. “Obviously it wasn’t enough because they woke up before I got back.” she says handing Vinyl and Octavia one “I forgot how quickly and how well those Jedi minds work. Now hurry we have to get to the hanger.”
Vinyl and Octavia both looked down at their items with confusion. Then something began to click. Like something far off was coming to them then suddenly it crashed over them spilling all this knowledge into their heads. ‘Lightsaber…’ Vinyl and Octavia thought to themselves. ‘Human, Jedi, bounty Hunter, Hk-51, sith…’ suddenly things began to flow, as if their memories from this world and the ones from Equestria were melding. Their eyes were finally open. Octavia gripped her saber in her hand and smirked with glee and Vinyl looked the stranger in the eye and smiled finally knowing who she was behind that mask “Let get to work Dash…” she says with a nod.
“You got it Boss. Keep the binders on until the virus takes effect, and then we go to work, and head straight for the hanger.” Dash orders HK, and they all take off down the hall.
“Oh Vinyl I almost forgot!” Dash stops and removes a set of Purple Goggles from her pouch and hands them to Vinyl. They looked like her sun glasses. “Never leave Raxus without them, right Vinyl? Now c’mon.” Vinyl slid them down onto her face. When they covered her eyes, they blinked, bringing up a heads up display in front of her eyes. It gave readouts on the ship they were in, vital signals of her, Octavia and Dash. “Oh Sweet! Alright let’s get out of here.” she said as she ran with the group
The observation on the bridge of the ship window looked out over empty space. Battlecruisers, frigates and fighters were all getting ready to head off to their destination. Lord Santus hummed a happy tune to herself as she looked out the window, her hands tapping along to a beat in her head. All the officers around her went about their business. Chatter could be heard from the various ships in the fleet, along with the officers talking back and forth to each other. Lord Santus is covered in a black cloak that covers her head and arms. Her Chest plate was painted a bright pink color and was covered in black scorch marks, regardless, it still massively clashed with the rest of her attire.
The song she was humming it sounded… happy. Then she began to mumble to herself “all I really need is a smile smile smile…” Behind her an officer walks up from behind. He is obviously scared out of his wits, his knees were shaking slightly and sweat was dripping down his brow. He gives one final gulp before he spoke “Lord Santus, You summoned me?”
The Lord stops tapping her hand, pausing for a moment before giggling a bit “No I didn’t silly, I just sent the Bounty Hunter to you to collect her fee for bringing the prisoner in silly filly!” The officer’s eyes went wide as dinner plates and he looked over at his fellow officers with a distressed look in his eye, they just shook their heads and looked away, already knowing he was a dead man.
“The Bounty H-Hunter s-said you summoned me…” the officer looks down at the ground, Lord Santus turning and pulls back her hood, revealing the creamy white face of a young woman. Her complexion was slightly pale though as if she had not seen sunlight in months. Her hair was bright pink hair that looked like inflated balloons. Sanctus’ face, still smiling with glee as she slightly skips closer to him, her pearly white teeth gleaming from an unknown source.
All her officers tense up and look away in any direction that they could. “Oh no, that means the Bounty Hunter is with them, and you handed over the prisoner to them. Awww… someone made a boo boo.” The officer was drenched in sweat and he was shaking with fear and at the very sight of her wide grin.
“Im sorry Lord Santus, it will never happen again…” you could hear the begging tone in his voice his legs finally gave way and he fell to his knees.
“Mmmm… it’s okay, simple mistake!” Lord Santus chirps as she walks by him. The officer gave a sigh of relief and began to calm, which only lasted for a moment when he felt his body being pierced by a burning sensation in his chest. He looked down, his face showing nothing but pure shock and was light up from the bright purple glow of Santus’ saber as it burned away at his chest and uniform with ease. From behind he heard her whisper “Just kidding.” Then a happy giggle as the lightsaber pulled out of his chest and he fell to the ground dead. She turns off her lightsaber and reattaches it to her belt. “Now everyone let’s find these Jedi before they escape, with a smile~.” She said smiling at her bridge crew, who hesitate. Santus then tilted her head, her abnormally large grin remaining on her face. “I said with a smile.” She hisses through her teeth. They all quickly gave weak smiles and got back to work. “GOOD!” she chirped before returning to her spot looking out the observation window. “Fill my heart up with sunshine sunshine…”
Dash, Octavia, Vinyl and the Hk-51 walked with haste through the halls of the ship, passing officers, mouse droids and troopers along the way. It was all coming back to them. Where they were, what they had done, and more importantly WHAT they were. They were human females aligned with the Galactic Republic; they were Jedi, the guardians of peace and justice. The one behind them was Rainbow Dash, but here they just called her Dash. She was a Bounty Hunter, allied with them. They were close friends. ‘This is amazing’ Vinyl thought to herself. She began to remember her lightsaber training, as well as her force training. Everything in their head was finally coming together and it was liberating.
She, along with Octavia, couldn’t believe that this was all real, and this was really happening. They still remembered everything that had happened, they remembered Ponyville, Equestria, everything. Just everything they knew was overlaid with the knowledge of this world. Even though one question still remained unanswered… How did they get here?
The group came to an elevator and Dash pushed the panel calling the elevator to their floor. They stood next to the doors, waiting for them to open. Vinyl and Octavia, looking back at each other, knowing that they both need to talk in private to try to figure this thing out. The elevator finally slid open and the group entered. “Hanger deck.” Dash says to the elevator. The doors slide shut and they all take a deep breath. HK spoke from behind them, “Statement: The Virus should be hitting the main systems in 3…2…1” When his finishes his count down all the power in the elevator goes out and it suddenly stops, sending all of them but HK to the ground. “That’s our queue guys. The virus will cripple the entire fleet for a few minutes. We need to hurry.” Vinyl and Octavia drop the binders to the floor.
“Only way to go is down, get cutting.” Dash says. Octavia draws her saber and ignites her bright blue blade, points it to the floor and starts cutting a circular hole in the floor of the Elevator, When she is done the metal plate falls down the empty shaft below. Dash, being impulsive, jumps down along with her HK-51.
Vinyl and Octavia slowly climb through the hole and make their way over to the wall to climb down to the nearest elevator car. They begin to make their way down by jumping from car to car. Dash on the other hand flies down to the hanger floor with her jet pack, and her HK until with rocket boots. Dash and HK reach the hanger deck elevator door and with little effort, sliding the door open. On the other side of the door, however, is a large group of Imperial troopers that draw their weapons at Dash. Dash chuckles “Wrong floor sorry.” She says before the troopers fire on her she quickly pushes off the wall and flies up and takes cover on a Car above the open door. Her HK unit following her, “Statement: It would seem that our attempts at stealth were futile.”
“I can see that HK, just find us another root to the hanger!”
“Statement: This is the only way to the hanger where Master Harvest is expecting us.”
Dash draws her blasters, gives them a revolver-like twirl and chuckles “I guess we’re blasting our way out of here. Let’s get to it HK!”
Vinyl and Octavia finally make it down to HK and Dash, Vinyl drawing her green saber and Octavia draws her blue saber. “Octavia and I will go ahead, you bring up the rear Dash.” ordered Vinyl, pointing her thumb backwards.
“You got it boss.” Dash response as she begins to fire at the troopers.
Vinyl and Octavia quickly jump at the open door, sabers drawn, blocking the incoming blaster fire up until they land and begin cutting down the troopers one by one with quick succession.
The way Vinyl moved was fast and aggressive, striking quick with uncanny speed, using kicks and the occasional grapple to take out her enemies.
Octavia was the same but relied on misdirection and elegance to deceive and strike down her opponents, a more tactical strategy.
Together, they complimented each other and were a deadly coupling. Once the entrance was clear, Dash and HK, rocketed to down to them and covered their rear firing down the branching halls at the oncoming troopers as Vinyl and Octavia cut their way through to the hanger.
As they move through the hanger a trooper came from behind a stack of crates, grappling Vinyl from behind. Vinyl growls at this and brought her head back, smashing the trooper’s faceplate with a little help from her force power to strengthen the blow. The guard then let go and stumbles backward before Vinyl circles around with her saber and cut him down while doing so. Vinyl then rubs the back of her head “Gah.. damn it…”
Shortly afterwards a group of troopers move from out the corner of the hanger and take a knee, aiming at them with their blasters. Vinyl narrows her eyes and quickly brought her hands forward, twirling her saber to deflect a huge barrage of blaster fire. Octavia, meanwhile, took this opportunity to put away her lightsaber and brought her hands up to concentrate, before moving about half of the amount of large metal crates beside them with her force power. She then opens her eyes and launches the heavy crates at the troopers at a fast speed. The troopers yelped before all of them were crushed to death.
After cutting down the last trooper, Vinyl and Octavia stood back to back scanning the area for more. When they were sure they were done the disengaged their sabers. Dash and HK caught up to them outside the hanger door. Vinyl looked at the door and lowered her goggles and peered at the door, her goggles adjusted seeing the heat signatures through the door into the hanger. She saw the heat from a figure wielding a single weapon, looking like a spear swinging it at a group of troopers.
“What do you see Vinyl?” Octavia asks, a hand on her saber just in case she needs to bring it out again.
“I see someone in there, fighting off some troopers. I think that’s our ride. Let’s get in there.” Vinyl backs away and pushes open the panel for the door and Octavia ignites her saber with a loud BWOW and runs in to support the man, Dash running in to follow her. Vinyl is the last in behind HK-51. Vinyl leaped into action targeting a trooper that she cut down with a single slash across his torso. The others went to work cutting and blasting down all the rest of the troopers clearing the hanger.
That was when Vinyl saw him. He gave a one last killing thrust at a trooper, impaling him holding him up in the air with his saber-pike, Vlad the Impaler style, before bringing his pike backwards, letting the trooper drop, killing him. He looks over in her direction making eye contact with her, his liquid-gold eyes looking her up and down before giving a short nod. His dark, charcoal grey hair reflected the dark-blue glow of his saber-pike. He stood around 6 foot even, wearing a standard dark-brown jedi cloak with a dark violet chest plate for protection. It was him…Harvest Moon, the pony that bumped into her and knocked her over in Ponyville. She knew it was him for sure. She didn’t know what it was, but she instantly felt a connection with him. She gave a quick shake of her head to shrug off her thoughts and returned her focus to the matters at hand. Octavia, Dash and Vinyl all put their weapons away and made their way quickly to the freighter. It was a XS Stock Light freighter, with a different paint job, this had a base dark grey color but the color lining was red and white. and along the cockpits left side was a Cobalt blue symbol. “Everyone, get on board, at once!” he yelled as he ran quickly inside. Harvest and Dash hurried to the cockpit and prepped for takeoff.
Everyone rushed on board, Octavia was the last one on. As the engines revved up and they began to lift off. Octavia fell to her knees and put her hand on one side of her head. “Octy!” Vinyl rushed to her side and knelt down trying to see what was wrong with her.
“Something is coming…get us out of here now!” she screamed Vinyl looked down the open gangplank of the freightor, she felt it too. They were finally airborne when the entrance to the hanger curled back inwards like burning paper revealing the visage of Lord Santus. Vinyl looked closer narrowing her eyes, when she finally recognized the glaring figure slowly marching towards them “Pinkie…?” she asks out loud as the doors close and the ship jets out of the hanger.
Lord Santus just smiles as she watches them leave. “Don’t worry, Im sure we will meet again. Just like Lord Sambra says.” She turns around and walks back through the destroyed door humming to herself.
Once clear of the fleet, the freighter jumps to light-speed and disappears into hyperspace. Inside Vinyl helps Octavia to the cockpit. HK stands behind Dash, his head pivoting from side to side. Vinyl sits her down in the chair behind Harvest moon. “Octy are you alright?” Vinly asks as she pets Octavia’s back
“It’s gone...it’s gone, I’m fine.” She says and finally rises to her feet.
“I assume the mission was a success?” Harvest asks as he turns around in the chair. Dash nods, “Aww yeah it was a pure win Harvest, went down without a hitch. Well… except for these two waking up before I could get to them.”
Harvest shakes his head at Dash “You should’ve compensated, you know jedi minds are stronger than most of the bounties you collect.” Harvest scolds.
“Hey now, I did my best, we got out alive didn’t we? So stop yer complaining.” Dash says as she unlatches her helmet from her armor and slides it off letting her rainbow colored hair drape down. She gives a sigh and wipes the sweat from her brow “I need to get the climate control fixed on this thing, I was burning up.” she says and looks back at Vinyl and Octavia. “You guys alright back there? You guys are never this quiet.”
Vinyl nods her head “Yep we’re okay, just still a little tired from our stun blast nap.” She says with a chuckle
Dash then shrugs, “Alright Maybe you guys should get some real rest then. We will be back home on Raxus Prime on a little over 3 hours.”
Vinyl and Octavia nod in agreement and get up and head away from the cockpit towards the main hold. Once they are away Dash looks at Harvest. “So what did we just risk our hides for anyway Harvest?” she asks as she leans back, putting her feet up on the console.
Harvest Moon shakes his head, “You know I can’t share that Information. That is to be shared with The Archon, the Librarian and the Didact.”
Dash rolls her eyes “Well it must have been important. Vinyl and Octavia never usually throw themselves into the Rancor pit like that without good motivation.”
Harvest leans back and put and rubs the stubble on his face, thinking “Well, trust me it for a good purpose.”
Vinyl and Octavia enter the dormitories and shut and lock the door behind them. “Vinyl, what is going on!? We are in a Freighter, flying through space with a human version of Rainbow Dash. We are using weapons, we just killed people…this is crazy. How do we even know how to use these things, or how do we know anything about this place!?” Octavia paces and is clearly having an episode.
Vinyl quickly grabs her by the shoulders and looks at her in the eyes “Octy calm down! We aren’t gonna figure this out if we don’t keep cool.” Octavia takes a deep breath and closes her eyes calming her nerves, Vinyl takes her hands off of Octavia’s shoulders and speaks
“Alright, we were obviously brought here by whatever that vortex thing was over Ponyville. It did something to us, and we woke up here. It looks like these people already know us…maybe what happened is, this placed already was around when that thing brought us here, and we just took over the place of the versions of ourselves that were here. That’s why after a while we started remembering things about this place.”
Octavia sits down on one of the bunks “You mean…there was a copy of us here, with these bodies and we just jumped into them?” Octavia asks
“Yeah… kinda.” Vinyl sighs and sits down next to her “Look I don’t know everything that’s going on, the best thing to do is to just go with the flow until we can figure this out. Agreed?”
Octavia looks at her and nods her head “Agreed…”
“Good…let’s get some sleep. We are going to be at Raxus Prime soon.” Vinyl climbs into the bunk above Octavia and lies down. “We will get home Octy, don’t worry.” She says as she looks up through the skylight into the vast tunnel of hyperspace. After a while they both fell asleep not knowing what the next day will hold.
