“Uh, babe?” Vinyl asked. “You’re not hitting the doorbell. Or knocking.”
I facehoofed. “They’re your family, Vinyl. How about you recover the brass you had on you when we were eluding the police and ring the bloody doorbell yourself?” I asked. Vic was, I admit, daft in his priorities sometimes. How could someone who was so bold as to get into a road battle with a policeman who loved his job a little too much get cold hooves with breaking the ice with his own family? Then again, I feature I would have been the same way, I admit I was glad it wasn’t my parents we were dealing with.
“Tavi?” she asked.
“Vinyl, I’m right here, whatever happens...” I said, putting my forehoof around her and giving her a hug. "After what we just went through, I'm certain you can handle this." Taking a deep breath, she took another step to the door and propped herself against the frame to reach the bell, pressing it with her hoof. My ear twitched at the sound of the ringing.
“W-what was I thinking?! How can I let them see me this way?!” Vinyl asked frantically, trotting in place like I knew the ponies from the show to do when they got anxious. I was about to approach when the door opened and there stood a woman who looked a little older then us; Vic’s older sister, Sarah. For a second she looked ahead in confusion, then down at us and… in record time confusion and disbelief appeared on her face; not that I could blame her, I believe anyone would react in such a way to seeing two small bug-eyed horse-things at the door staring up at them.
“H-hey, Sarah,” Vinyl said with a weak wave. “I know I don’t look like me, but it’s me, Vic! You know, your little brother! Look, you’re not gonna believe what crazy shit happened to me and Livvy these last few days!” she explained with a nervous laugh as she rubbed the back of her head sheepishly.
I barely caught Sarah in time before she hit the floor, it was certainly a good thing I was strong as I was and managed to prop against her as she fell or there may have been injury. Still, I was certain she was hardly conscious anymore.
“Whoa! Sarah! Hey, you alright?” Vinyl cried out, rushing over to her sister as I attempted to set her down and began tapping her shoulder with her forehoof to try and wake her up.
“Who’s that at the…” The question never got all the way out when Mr. and Mrs. Spencer arrived in the hall, and soon both were staring agape at us.
“What in the hell are…?!” Mr. Spencer muttered.
“Heh, yo, dad! What’s up! It’s been awhile, figured it wouldn’t hurt if Livvy and I stopped by!” Vinyl said in a poor attempt at acting natural. “You’re not gonna pass out like Sarah did, are you?” she asked, approaching.
“What… what are you?” Mrs. Spencer asked, pointing down at her.
“Look, despite appearances, it is me, Olivia, and that’s your son, Vic,” I tried to explain. “…and believe me when I say we’ve had a very, very strange couple of days.”
“C-come on…” Vinyl pleaded, staring up at her parents. “For my fifth birthday we went to that big arcade and got me my first New York-style pizza! I’ve been a fan ever since!” she insisted. “Well, maybe not anymore since I don’t think I can do meat, now, but still! We had your special steamed crab when I brought her over for the first time!” she added, gesturing her forehoof to me. “And you got all excited when I told you last weekend for our birthday-anniversary I wanted to… well…” she got quiet and just stared like she didn’t want to say something with me present.
“My god…” Mr. Spencer uttered, clearly still having trouble finding words. “…Vic, is that really you in there?” he asked.
“Do I need to list off all the songs on the first mix I made?” Vinyl asked in response. “As in the one I tried to use for one of my birthday that one of my friends saved my ass from being shamed by?”
She stared up at them, the desperate look in her eyes was painful to see, enough to make me walk over and put my foreleg around her. “Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, I assure you, this pony here is your son.”
“Daughter, now, I guess,” Vinyl muttered, downcast.
A moment passed and her mother slowly reached out and held Vinyl’s chin in her hand, looking into the pony’s eyes, and she looked back, still appearing ashamed and prompting me to hug her a little.
“Vic… that is you, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Hey, mom…” Vinyl smiled a little.
“How… what… how did this happen?!” Mr. Spencer asked, standing back up and looking at us in disbelief.
“We’d best take this to the living room. We have quite a good deal to explain,” I said. “Though first we may want to see to your eldest daughter,” I added, noting Sarah who was beginning to stir from her daze.
This is going to be interesting…
~
“And then when we got away from Officer Mc-Psychopath we decided to come here and break the news to you,” Vinyl concluded. “We were hoping to invite you over so we could think of a better way to, but obviously that didn’t work out.”
Both of Vic’s parents, as well as Sarah just continued to stare agape at us, I wasn’t entirely sure how much of our story they actually heard, honestly. Luckily Sarah’s daughters were asleep upstairs and had not been awoken by our arrival, which would have surely complicated matters further then they have already become.
“So, wait… the cops came after you?!” Sarah asked.
“Yeah, didn’t you pay attention?” Vinyl asked indignantly. “All because they mistook our iced tea for beer and us for underage kids and were gonna shoot us if we tried to show any ID!”
“Now that I think about it, that sounds typical of them,” Sarah replied with an eyeroll. “Still, you can’t be too surprised they’d come looking for someone who tried to evade them.”
“Well, the one certainly was, his partner seemed to be more on our side about it. Still, we didn’t have much of a chance for, ya know, diplomacy!” Vinyl said, gesturing to my flank where the cut from the bullet graze still was. “I barely saved her from getting killed!”
“Even then, that’s just the most recent insane thing we went through,” I said. “The whole fact we turned into… ponies… from a television show and one of its villains is real and proved the show apparently was real, too, is rather distressing to say the least!”
“Yeah, major existential crisis…” Vinyl said, downcast for a moment before looking up at her parents. “Mom? Dad?” she asked as we noticed them both getting up off the sofa.
“Vic… or Vinyl, is it, now?” Mr. Spencer asked. “This is a lot to deal with! Your mother and I need a moment!”
Vinyl cowered a little, Sarah threw her arms around her. “Mom? Dad? Everything they told us! Look, this is freaking the hell out of me, too, but you can’t possibly be thinking he… she’s… Vic’s not ours anymore, can you?” she pleaded.
“Mr. and Mrs. Spencer, if I may…” I said, hopping down from the sofa and approaching them. “Whatever time you need to mull this all over, do try to understand that is no less the child you raised! The child you helped make into someone I fell in love with, who stood up to my parents who could probably buy out this neighborhood fifty times over when they tried to take me back by force! If you’re even thinking about rejecting that person now, you’re not the parents I spent the last five years wishing mine could have been like!”
Neither said anything for a moment, before Mr. Spencer finally spoke again. “Just, give us a moment, alright?” he asked, more softly then before. Deciding to comply, I gave a nod and walked back over to the sofa, putting my forehoof on Vinyl’s shoulder and gently nuzzling her cheek, getting a small smile from her as her parents went into the kitchen and closed the doors.
Several moments went by; I couldn’t make out a thing even with these pony ears. I imagine they suspected the two of us could hear better now like this. Vinyl was shaking all over. The one who as I’d said stood up to my parents and violent policemen… was shaking all over, at least until her sister gave her a hug and began stroking her mane, something that seemed to calm her down a little. I wanted to help her, I wanted to say something that could make it all right, I didn’t want her to suffer what I had with my own family. But nothing short of the eventual outcome we were waiting for would give us any resolution, for better or worse.
At long last, Mr. and Mrs. Spencer returned to the living room.
“I’m sorry…” Mrs. Spencer said softly.
“Mom?” Vinyl asked, all her previous anxiety returning.
“Sorry… for scaring you back there,” Mr. Spencer said. “Human or horse, you’re our kid, no matter what. And if you ever find this Equestria place, we hope you still think of us as your parents.”
Vinyl had moved so fast from the couch to embracing her parents I swear she’d teleported. Both slouched a little, and returned the hug.
“Not gonna cry, not gonna cry,” Vinyl muttered, smiling.
“Call it liquid pride, Vic?” Sarah replied.
“Yeah, guess you’re dealing with another daughter, now…” Vinyl said, frowning.
“Mr. Spencer? Mrs. Spencer?” I asked, approaching. “Thank you. You honestly have no idea what this means to us.”
“I guess now we know what’s been going on with all those disappearances,” Mr. Spencer said. “It’s been on the news, people vanishing, an explosion in Washington, and now this…”
“Yeah, I think if me and her weren’t among the ones who went all pony neither of us would have believed it either,” Vinyl replied, brushing tears from her eyes and putting her foreleg around me.
“I see the fans were right about one thing,” Vinyl’s sister commented.
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Spencer asked.
“Don’t ask. Really, don’t,” Sarah replied, prompting an eyeroll from me.
“No matter what…” Vinyl began, looking back up at her parents again. “You’ll always be my mom and dad,” she said, hugging them again as best she could for a four-legged creature. "So, look, any way we-"
Vinyl’s speech was cut off by two loud gasps, prompting us all to turn to the nearby stairs where two 8-year-old girls, Sarah’s daughters and Vinyl’s nieces Amy and Alicia stood, both of them staring right at us.
Immediately I began to back away, Vinyl remained frozen in place, her tail swishing from side to side and her ears drooping as her mouth hung open.
“H-hey, girls…” Vinyl said nervously, rubbing the back of her head.
“OMYGOSHPONIES!” the two girls shouted in unison, rushing the rest of the way down the stairs and straight at us.
“Girls, hang on! Girls!” Sarah ordered but not fast enough as Vinyl, who had been closer then I was, was immediately cuddled to the floor.
“She’s so cute, mommy!” Amy said with a big smile.
“And so soft!” Alicia said, nuzzling Vinyl’s cheek.
“C’mon, girls! I’m not a pet, it’s me, Uncle Vic… sorta,” Vinyl stammered.
“You’re not Uncle Vic, you’re a pony! A girl pony!” Amy said.
“Yeah, we know what Uncle Vic looks like, and he’s not a girl pony,” Alicia added.
“It’s rather… complicated, actually,” I said. “Look, the point is, that is Vic, and I’m really Olivia. You remember me, don’t you?” I asked, hoping I’d save my boyfriend from any further embarrassment.
The twins stared at me, then at Vinyl, clearly confused. I suppose at their age the idea of characters from a show they loved claiming to be their uncle and his girlfriend would be rather difficult to believe, then again, I imagine to anyone it would be without a talk like the one we’d had with Vinyl’s parents.
“It’s true, that really is your Uncle Vic,” Sarah said firmly, though I could tell the whole situation was still bothering her. “Something happened, you remember Discord from the show? Well… it’s a long story and I’ll tell you about it later, but Vic and Olivia turned into Vinyl Scratch and Octavia. It really is them.”
Alicia slowly walked up to me and nudged my muzzle with her finger tip. “So… you’re really Olivia?” she asked.
“Yes. Well… it’s… I’m really Octavia, and I was reborn as Olivia and turned back into Octavia, and…” I facehoofed. “It’s all very complicated but I fancy the best way to answer is yes.”
“Wow! What’s it like being a pony?” Amy asked Vinyl. “I bet it’s fun!”
“It’s way weird, kiddo,” Vinyl said with a sigh. “And anything but fun.”
“But you’re so adorable!” Amy said, hugging Vinyl. “So, do you have to go to Equestria, now?”
“What? No way, I’m from here! Born and raised and I wouldn’t want to leave!” Vinyl protested.
“We may not have much of a choice, Vinyl,” I said. “As much as I do love your family.”
“Wait a minute…” Alicia said, looking at the two of us. “You’re both girls now, are you still in love?” she asked with far more innocence then her words would make me expect.
“Pfft, like I’m letting getting turned into a pony break us up if I can help it!” Vinyl said, pulling me into a hug and wearing a big, stupid grin on her face.
“See? I told you DJ PON-3 and Octavia were liz-beans!” Alicia told Amy with a smug grin. “The pictures all said so!”
Now it was everyone else in the room’s turn to stare agape.
“Sarah?” Vinyl asked, noticing her sister looked ready to faint again.
“I love the show but sometimes I really, really hate the fanbase...” Sarah muttered.
“New topic!” Vinyl said abruptly and loudly. “How about we think of some kinda dinner plan since we’re all here?”
Apply hoof to the forehead. Clump. Lovely work, Octavia
~
“No. Way.”
“Pleeeeeease?”
“No.”
“Come on!”
“No-OH! Wow, this feels really nice!” Vinyl said as she began slouching a little while her nieces began brushing her mane. "No bows or braids, though."
“They’ve practiced on the dog back home,” Sarah replied. “I can’t lie, little brother. You are extremely cute like this!” she said with a laugh.
“Hey, you do not have the right to call me cute no matter how I look, it’s seriously emasculating!” Vinyl protested.
“I’d think after certain other changes that would be rather tame in comparison,” Sarah pointed out matter-of-factly.
“Don’t be so cross, Vinyl. You’ve made your nieces the happiest I’ve ever seen them since last Christmas,” I said.
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?” Vinyl asked in a flat tone as she stared straight ahead.
“After what we went through earlier today, especially me, I feel I’m entitled to a little harmless merriment at your expense,” I replied, getting an annoyed snort from Vinyl in response.
“Aww!” Amy and Alicia fawned in unison before breaking into a giggle fit. Even I couldn’t help but chuckle a little.
…Until I felt a crisp swat to my flank. Turning, I saw Vinyl’s tail flick away, her eyes gazing upward in a poor attempt at innocence before walking away from the twins and to the full-length mirror in the guest room they’d been staying in.
“Hm, got any hairspray? I think this mane needs a little more…” Vinyl shook her head wildly, her blue mane tossing about in the air and soon it got a wild look much like her television counterpart had. “Style. That’s more like it!”
I cocked an eyebrow, unsure what to make of this, her mane now looked like it had the moment she rolled out of bed this morning. “I should have remembered you’re the type to just apply a can of spray to whatever your hair looks like when you wake up in the morning and call it ‘stylish’…”
“You sayin’ I’m not, babe? I think that's been my thing since... well... birth!” Vinyl said, grinning. “Girls, it’s Tavi’s turn,” she said.
“Oh no, you can’t be serious…” I began to back away but Amy managed to get the first run through her hair brush, and as much as I didn’t want to be treated like a pet by two young girls… I couldn’t help but slouch a little and enjoy the feeling as the bristles passed through my mane. “Hm, this is surprisingly relaxing,” I admitted, defeated.
“My little brother and his girlfriend enjoying getting their hair done. Wonders never cease,” Sarah remarked as she leaned against the wall. “It’s a shame, your diets probably changed, though.”
“Yeah, I don’t get to enjoy meat like I used to. It’s like some cruel joke!” Vinyl protested. “No more New York-style pepperoni pizza for me… may as well take away my… oh, right,” she said with an eyeroll. “At least Chinese doesn’t sound bad,”
“So, any ideas what’s going to happen, now? I mean with being… well… ponies and all?” her sister asked.
“Honestly? We aren’t sure,” I said, looking up from my grooming session. “We were run out of our apartment with only the barest of necessities, and we have no idea where anypony…” I brought my hoof to my mouth. “Sorry, strange habit… but anyway, I mean that we have no idea where to go next, hopefully something will turn up for us. The chaos god who did this wasn’t particularly specific with us outside of taking credit for all of this.”
“Yeah, still trying to grasp that a villain based on a Star Trek character whose actor he was voiced by is real, too,” she replied. "But... still, all of this, it's a lot to take..."
“Yes, it all sounds bloody ridiculous, but he’s as real as we are. Though it would seem not as actively troublesome as he appeared in the show,” I explained.
“Probably because ponies on Earth have plenty more to worry about,” Vinyl remarked. “Case in point, the crazy experience we had earlier today!”
“Discord’s real?” Amy asked, suddenly.
“Could he hurt us?” Alicia asked. “I thought he was good, now!” It seemed that Sarah had chosen not to show them the final episode. Understandable as I imagine many parents wouldn't want their young children to watch something so unexpectedly dark and depressing.
“Girls, he is real. And he’s not good. Not anymore,” Vinyl said, approaching them. “He did all this. But hey…” she looked them both in the eyes. “He still did something good, even if he doesn’t know it,” she smiled. “I ended up in this family, and got two awesome nieces out of it!”
Her words made me smile, reminding me of the Vic I’d fallen in love with. An occasional idiot with dreadful taste in music, but an absolute sweetheart when was needed.
“Now get back to making Tavi all pretty!” she said, grinning deviously at me as she nudged both twins back towards me.
I hate you, sometimes… I thought to myself as the girls descended upon me once more. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sarah leaving the room.
"Sarah?" Vinyl asked.
"Vic... can we talk? Away from the girls," she asked. It had been evident from the beginning this had all unnerved her, I couldn't blame her, but I hoped for the best as I stood there getting groomed, watching as Vinyl, now with a concerned look on her face, followed her sister out the door.