Monkey Business- Turn down for… What?
Fluttershy’s cottage
Boredom. That’s what hit Sun Wukong the moment he realized that Fluttershy wasn’t here this morning and he was stuck with Discord, Kreed, Reson and Honeydew. The Element of Kindness had to be with her friends since a few delegates from the Country of Yakyakistan were visiting Twilight at her castle early that morning. Leaving him to try and figure out the ins and outs of Fluttershy’s kitchen and find out how exactly he was suppose to feed her Animals. It took him almost half an hour for him to get it right before he was able to eat an apple and a couple of pieces of toast.
As he made his way into the living room though and sat down on the couch, something fell down on his lap that interrupted his planned meditation. It was… an Ipod? With headphones? Did somepony notice his boredom and decide to provide a way to entertain himself for a while? Whatever the case, he turned the device on and placed the headphones in his ears. The device itself was one of the older models that could hold up to 160gb of songs, movies and anything else that he could want on there. The first thing he heard though was a simple message before he could listen to any of the music that was on the MP3 player.
"Hey wassup dude or dudette! This is Vinyl Scratch and if ya need some cool tunes or just wanna hang out and party, then you found your gal! I ain’t too great at fighting so unless you just want a wicked bass cannon or something I wouldn't call me up for that. Later dudes!"
Vinyl Scratch? The same pony as the DJ at Pinkie’s party? Talk about surprising. As he looked at the artist playlist though, it was not like what he honestly expected. The Faunus expected to see Equestrian plays on artists from back on earth. But instead, it was the opposite. He found artists such as Droptek, Krewella, Kill the Noise, Aero Chord, Varien, Zomboy, Two steps from hell & Razihel to name a few. Of course, these were only a few of Sun’s favorite artists from back home along with a few others. He likes to listen to music to help him focus and get in the zone before he undertook a big task such as mowing the lawn or helping do chores around his parents house.
Now that he had something to keep him entertained, he placed the headphones in and pressed the play button on the first song he was listening to. Wiz Khalifa’s ‘Can’t Be stopped’, the title song for the Mortal Kombat X reveal trailer. The beat of the music and the fast paced rhymes helped him when he was practicing with his gunchaku outside of the cottage, being careful to not fire any shots from his weapons and wake some of the sleeping animals in the forest. Soon though, he felt a tugging sensation. Almost like when Loki was coming to him the other day. This time, it was calling for him.
“Ah, what the heck? I got some time to kill.” The Faunus went back inside for a moment to tell Discord that he would be back in a little while before he let the sensation course throughout his body and pull him away. Sun began to wonder who exactly was calling him on such short notice… and for what purpose exactly?
That was until he heard the saying… ‘Please Sun Wukong. You’re my only hope.’
Train to Ponyville (Home of the Wub Queen)
Straight out of the gate, Sun could tell a few things were off in the current situation he was in as he dropped on top of a pony wearing a metal mask. For one thing, these ponies that looked like a bunch of Daft Punk copycats were trying to get the Mane Six entangled in nets and the supposed person that summoned him was getting dragged away. From his left, a pony tried to strike him with their hooves, only to have sun blast them backwards with Ruyi Bang before he catapulted himself towards the girl on the ground.
“DYNAMIC ENTRY!!!”
Surprisingly, the tactic actually worked as the song on the Ipod changed to Gunmetal Black by Varien. A Dubstep track that had sounds that were influenced by Asian Culture. Reloading his weapons, Sun looked at the girl that was behind him on the ground and the freaks that were in front of him. Calmly, he stepped forward.
“Alright… Who’s next?”
Sun heard a brief ‘thanks’ coming from the girl on the ground as she began to unravel the net that was stuck around her. Now, the attention of her attackers was focusing on the Faunus as the Mane Six were beginning to hold their own and the blue haired girl was focusing on removing the net off of her. Most of the Unicorns tried casting spells to stun him, but the gem that Loki had given Sun was causing the spells to be ineffective as he used non-lethal ammunition to knock out a few more attackers. He saw the girl run back to the demolished train car that was nearby, presumably to retrieve something that she left on board. That was alright with Sun. He was honestly enjoying seeing how strong these guys were.
After a few moments, it seemed like those ponies were beginning to change tactics as he had to dodge incoming Pegasi that were trying to dive bomb the Faunus. However, it was too easy for Sun to dodge out of the way of those attacks and fight back. However, the only thing he didn’t expect was one of the ponies to sneak up from behind him. Or the moment where the girl clocked him in the back of the head with a mysterious black board.
Seconds later, a loud voice can be heard from somewhere in the distance. “Retreat! We’ll get our objective some other time!”
Sun sighed in relief, seeing that the fight was over as he watched the Daft Punk ponies retreat. Only to have a loud sound almost like a Bass Drop rock the area as he and the others tried to get on top of the Train cars. The girl that summoned him almost had fell down onto the ground if Sun wasn’t quick enough to catch her using his tail. After getting back on her feet, she crossed her arms, concerning Sun.
“You okay there, miss?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just disappointed we couldn’t interrogate one of them. Curious about the random attack ya know?” She told the Faunus, uncrossing her arms. A brief moment of silence allowed both parties to compose their thoughts before the Girl asked another question. “Your name’s Sun Wukong right?”
Sun Wukong nodded his head as he took a seat on the wooden surface. “Why yes it is. Something tells me that you used my Token if you were the girl acting like Princess Leia and saying ‘You’re my only hope’.” She looked a little embarrassed when she was looking back at me before giving out a deep sigh. Then, she replied back, with a blush brightening her face. Either because of the fact that she could see Sun’s abs or something else.
“Er… yeah. For some reason Star Wars popped into my head.” The girl said, clearing her throat before continuing. “So that coin was some sort of Token?”
“More than a certain kind. It’s my summoning token.”
“Summoning token?” The mentioning of the subject had the girl look at Sun in confusion, causing Sun to sigh as he pulled out the Medallion that was his token. Her eyes widened upon seeing it. Sun then went into explanation. “This medallion was used by you to summon me to your world. Heck, that’s why I’m a Displaced.”
While Sun let her process those thoughts, he decided to stop listening to the music in his Ipod as a sign of Respect. That was… Until he heard her say something he didn’t expect. “Dude, so you were the one that got my iPod? What are the chances of that?”
“Wait… This is yours-? ……… You must be Vinyl then.” Sun said. Vinyl nodded her head and gave Sun a thumbs up, saying that she was the human Vinyl Scratch while the real one was in Canterlot and explained how exactly she ended up in her current situation. Sun, to get on an even level, decided to share his story as well. This got Vinyl to say a few more things about the Resident Evil merchant she purchased her headphones from before letting out a frustrated sigh.
“Gotta admit I’m a bit annoyed right now.”
Sun chuckled a little internally as he looked at the DJ. “Because of the circumstances, the Daft Ponies, or the fact that your cheeks are brighter than Celestia’s sun?”
“Let’s say it’s some sort of mixture of those.” She snorted, rolling her eyes a bit at Sun’s question, cheeks tinged with a touch of red. Before the faunus could reply though, he saw Vinyl’s version of Twilight trot on over to where they were sitting and then pose a question for the DJ. “Vinyl, who is this?” Sun watched as she smiled a little like she honestly forgot about someone before pointing in his direction.
“Hey Twilight. This guy is Sun Wukong, I flipped a coin and brought him here.” To her credit, Twilight only looked a little baffled as she looked at the Faunus like she was trying to study every angle of him.
“That… sounds theoretically impossible.” She said off the bat. Before Twilight could say anything else, Sun interjected. “Nothing is really ‘impossible’, it’s just that it hasn’t been tried yet. Besides, My coin is like a summoning stone in Final Fantasy, but it works both ways. You summoning me was one way Vinyl. The other way was you ending up in my world, but of course, each world is different.”
“So multiverse theory then?” The DJ asked, scratching her chin as she took a few seconds to think to herself before speaking again. “So how different is your Equestria from this one?”
“Well, judging from Twilight alone…… Quite a lot.”
Vinyl raised an eyebrow, before realizing what exactly the Faunus meant. “Oh! I get it,” Vinyl replied before coming a bit closer to Sun’s ear and whispering, “Twilight is a Princess right?” Sun nodded, answering the DJ’s question. She sighed a little, whispering to herself again.
“Why am I stuck in season two and you aren’t?” Sun was confused about what she meant by season two, but he just decided to play along and roll with it as Vinyl spoke again. This time to Twilight. “So how far away from Ponyville are we anyway? With the train as it is I don’t think we will be riding in comfort.”
Twilight rubbed her chin with a hoof. “Weeeell, if my timetable and estimates for travel time are correct, and they usually are, then it is only a thirty minute train ride away!” Twilight stamped her hoof adorably, head held high.
“So how long is that by walking?” Vinyl asked.
Around now was when Twilight went into calculator mode as Sun would call it as she began to process information. “The train travels at around eight-five miles an hour. So by that logic it is a forty two and a half mile walking distance away! It should only take the rest of the day to follow these tracks all the way to Ponyville, we’ll be there by nightfall!”
Sun heard Vinyl personally groan to herself which Twilight wasn’t bothered at all about the length in time that it would take to arrive safely home. The Faunus could see that Vinyl looked really warm in the jacket she was wearing and soon noticed her talking to Rarity about a request for extra clothes. This reminded him that he needed to stop by his Rarity once he got back so he could pick up the clothes she had for him back at the Carousel Boutique. It wasn’t long though until Vinyl caught his attention again when the DJ posed a new question for him once everypony had got the chance to regroup and salvage their belongings off of the destroyed train car.
“If it isn’t too much trouble, could you escort us beautiful ladies back to town? Just to make sure those sucky DJs don’t come back around?”
“Sure thing,” The Faunus began to say, until another thought came across his mind. “But shouldn’t we see if there are any more survivors on the train first before we get moving?”
Vinyl shrugged as she looked at the wrecked locomotive. "Well, earlier on the trip I walked across the entire train length. Didn't see anyone on board. Though I didn't check the engine room. Someone could be there I suppose."
“What about where the luggage would be?” Sun suggested, thinking of the first thing that came to mind. “The door could’ve locked on somepony while they were still inside.”
Vinyl’s response… was just her scratching her head. "Didn't think of that."
Around now was when Twilight decided to interject between our conversation. "Well, how about the girls and I check out the engine room while you and Mr. Wukong check the luggage car?"
“That sounds like a good idea. Are you okay with that, Vinyl?” The Faunus asked, making sure that both the DJ and her were on the same page.
"Yeah, sounds great. This'll be over quicker."
“That depends on what we find,” Sun said. When he got a few brief stares, he sighed. “What? I was being optimistic.”
"Come on, I know where it is." Vinyl said, ushering Sun to follow her as both groups parted ways. Soon though, they came to the car that was suppose to be the luggage car. “It’s locked.”
‘That can be easily fixed.’ Sun thought to himself as he shot off the lock with one of his guns. “Not anymore.”
Vinyl jumped a little when Ruyi Bang went off, turning towards Sun with an angered look on her face. "Dude, give a girl a warning before you fire your thing off."
‘Define thing,’ Sun dismissed the damned thought that lurked in his mind as he looked back at Vinyl and sighed. “The Ammunition’s blunt. But has enough force to break the lock. Sorry about that.” She waved it off, saying that we should focus more on the task at hand as she swung the door open. The two of them were greeted by a mountain of luggage that stacked towards the roof… and the one hoof that was trying to find it’s way out of there. Sun quickly rushed to the aid of the trapped individual. Once the luggage cleared up, it thanked the both of them as she looked at the Human DJ.
“W-wait? Vinyl? What are you doing here?”
The pony was an Earth pony mare that had a dark brown mane and a dark grey fur coat with the cutie mark of a musical symbol on it. She wore a bowtie around her neck and also looked very… noble. For some reason, the Faunus noticed the expression on Vinyl’s face as she looked at the surprised mare.
“Dude, aren’t you suppose to be visiting family?”
“Why yes, yes I am. But enough of that, Vinyl why do you look so… oh how should I put this? Strange?” The pony asked the DJ. Her only reply at first was a sigh before having to go into a LONG explanation. “Uh about that, I’m not... well… your Vinyl. That Vinyl is up in Canterlot at your shared house, we hung out for a bit and she told me about you.”
The mare blinked for a moment before responding again. “Oh, I see. So there-” She stopped herself short and adopted a face that was part surprise, part horror, and part… uh.. excitement? “There-There are TWO of you in Equestria?!” The Cellist put a hoof to her head as she fell backwards and fainted on her cello case. “Oh sweet Celesti-”
Sun and Vinyl just stood there and stared at the passed out pony. That was until the Human DJ turned to the Faunus and posed a question for him. “Was it something I said?”
“Something tells me that the pony version of you has a habit of driving her nuts.” Sun replied, shrugging his shoulders. Vinyl herself placed a hand on her hip, lost in thought for a little bit before responding back. “Could be. Well, let’s make her quick nap comfortable at least. We can ask her if she has anything besides her cello to take with her.”
“I can carry her if that’s alright with you.” Sun offered as the two of them began to move the pony off of the case and onto the ground. After picking up the earth pony and setting her down, the Faunus was waiting to hear from the DJ on what should there next priority be. However, this was met by only silence…… until Vinyl spoke up.
“Could you tell me all you know about the Displaced while we wait? Something tells me that it’s important.”
Looking at the DJ, Sun sighed as he straightened himself up. “Oh boy… Where to even begin?” He pondered the thought for a few seconds before coming up with a follow up question. “You are familiar with the Multiverse, right?”
Vinyl nodded at him and folded her arms, “Yeah, at least the basic idea.”
“Alright… Well, think about what happened to you… Happening to other people and with each circumstance being different and each one of them ending up in one of numerous Equestria’s… That is basically what happened to us… Did I confuse you?” He then asked, making sure that Vinyl was not lost in translation because of him explaining.
She shook her head. “No, it seems pretty simple... at least so far. Is there anyone I should avoid?”
“I’m not sure myself. I’ve only met a few of them. But I would personally stay AWAY from Herobrine. He’s crazy.”
Vinyl looked back at Sun now with a raised eyebrow. “Herobrine? Like the fake dude from Minecraft?”
“Yes, but in his world, he’s the freaking king of the nether AND enjoys massacring ponykind after the sisters imprisoned him in stone. He can even create the monsters you see in Minecraft and calls them his “Troops”. He’s pretty pissed off at me when I encountered him because our encounter ended with a shotgun blast to his shoulder.”
“He sounds like a d***.” The DJ cringed, now hearing the new details of him from the Faunus.
“He is. Trust me.” Sun sighed, folding his arms before speaking again. “Otherwise than that, I’ve personally only met a few Displaced. There’s a Displaced Discord named Loki, Deathwing, Queen Faust, A Rune Slayer named Nicko, and also my cousin Lance who is Gunvolt; the Azure Striker just to name a few.”
“Gunvolt? Huh, been meaning to play that game before I came here.” She told him, making Sun think that he should introduce her to Lance next time they meet. “So… do you think you could teach me how to fight? I know that’s a question out of the blue but still.”
“I can…” The Faunus began to speak as he sat down for a minute. “But two things first. One, you’ll have to define fight, and two, maybe we should do this someplace else where nopony would get hurt.”
Vinyl sighed, leaning back against a nearby wall. “Well, by fight I mean like defending myself. I was practically useless when the Daft Ponies came charging in. And I don’t mean like now, maybe in some field on the outskirts of Ponyville or something if you agree.”
“I’m all for it. I was just wanting to know some key details before we start on anything.” He said, watching her shrug it off as the two of them were attracted to the sounds of a tired mare waking up from collapsing.
“Wh-what happened? I remember… Vinyl?!”
“Again… Other Vinyl…” Sun pointed out. He personally then realized that keeping track of both human and pony would be utterly ridiculous and give him a severe headache. So, he then said something “Something tells me there should be a way to tell you two apart. Got any nicknames that might work?”
“Haven’t had any. Discord just called me Ms. Scratch during our imprisonment. Maybe I should wear a sign?”
Now that thought sounded ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the ideas that popped up in Sun’s head for nicknames. “How about Vine? Or Vinny… nah, too messed up… Oh! How about Record?”
Vinyl though, wasn’t so enthusiastic. “Eh… I’ll just go with Vine.”
“For the Lack of a better name?... I would personally call you Rhythm.” He chuckled. But to Vinyl, this was… actually pretty good.
“You sure seem set on a nickname huh? Alright, you can call me Rhythm if you want.”
“Well, it would be better than calling you Vinyl and having BOTH of you respond at the same time. Plus, you’re a DJ and there’s Rhythm in music. So I thought Rhythm. Rhythm Scratch.”
“Alright, you made your point. It’s good I’ll admit that.” She replied back, looking at Octavia now. “So just call me Rhythm then since I’m not your Vinyl. Also do you have anything else other than this cello case or are you good to go?”
“I should be alright… But what happened exactly?”
Vinyl shrugged and so did Sun. “Well… I don’t really know. Twilight and the others were traveling with me to Ponyville and suddenly a ton of ponies wearing face covering helmets attacked the train with some really bad bass. When that knocked the train off they attacked us and tried to drag me away. I called Sun here and he drove them off and then we found you.”
“Well, sound at very high velocity can blast things over like shockwaves… Tell me Vinyl, was there anything that you might’ve done that could attract their attention?” Sun asked the DJ, just to make sure.
“You don’t need to tell me about sound. But no, I haven’t done anything significant in over a thousand years. The last thing of import I did was my incident with Cloudsdale.”
“Hmm…” Sun said to himself, looking like a detective in thought… “Music like ponies… Wanting to capture you…… Could you have unintentionally started a cult? Because that’s the only idea I have at this rate… Unless there’s something about you that you even don’t know about yourself.”
Vinyl scratched her head before looking back at the Faunus. “I dunno, if they were cultists why would they attack me instead of just prostrating before me? That train wrecking could’ve killed me.”
“Maybe they wanted not you, but something that belonged to you.”
That… got the DJ thinking a bit. She soon brought out a device that looked like a turntable as she showed it to him. “Maybe this?”
Sun and Vinyl walked alongside Octavia out of the train car as they continued to talk. “Hmm… Something tells me there's a lot more to this than meets the eye… Also, I think you have a special talent that only you would recognize… Tell me, are you the only one who could use this?”
“Well I’m sure anyone who has magic could potentially use it… but I’m the only one who could make one time and time again… and be able to use it at it’s fullest capacity”
“Maybe you have a Semblance in which allows only you to interact with it?” Sun suggested, soon having to explain to Vinyl what a Semblance was and explain to her how his worked. Then, he suggested that maybe it was possible that Vinyl could somehow control Sound and Music. She looked thoughtfully at Sun as she followed up his statement with a reply.
“Maybe? But the control depends entirely on what I’ve made and what materials used. I’m more like Ironman or Batman. A gadget user, but we won’t know until we look more into it guess.”
“Yes, but remember, Some gadgets can help someone control their gifts. Like Cyclop’s goggles.”
Vinyl nodded in response. “Yeah, now that I think about it my wub-nades would count as well. Same as the bass cannon… though pony me has made one of those already I’m sure of.”
“Trust me, she has,” Octavia remarked. “Along with a Dubstep blaster and Luna knows what else she has in her room.”
Vinyl herself gave a dreamy sigh. “Ah, I didn’t get a chance to explore her room. There must be sooo many wonderful things in there.” What she said next though caused both Sun and Octavia’s eyes to twitch a bit. “I wonder what we could make if we put our heads together?”
Before Octavia could say anything though we heard Pinkie cry out, “Hey you two! I see you found somepony! Woohoo! More for the Glad-We-Survived-The-Train-Wreck party!” Vinyl and Sun looked towards Pinkie and saw her jumping up and down, waving a hoof energetically at us in greeting as the three of them finally got closer to the front of the train. Vinyl waved back at them as the three of them soon joined up with the others.
Twilight was soon the first to speak. "So, I see that your search found somepony."
“Yeah, Octavia was buried underneath her luggage.” Sun said.
Twilight raised a quizzical eyebrow but didn’t ask. Instead she said, “Well we have everything we need, I even took the liberty of grabbing some water bottles and snacks from the food car for the trip!” To emphasize, she levitated a saddlebag in front of them before putting it on. Before you know it though, one of the Mane Six began to grow impatient.
“Come on Twilight, let’s stop standing around talking and go!” Rainbow complained, though she couldn’t say anything about standing… she was flying lazy circles around the group.
“While ah might not agree with Rainbow’s tone, we really should be headin’ out now Sugarcube. Ah don’t want to leave Big Mac to do all mah chores if ah’m too tired to work tomorrow.” Applejack told them.
Twilight nodded, “You’re right. Come on girls… and Sun, the sooner we start, the quicker we get back home!”
“Finally!” Rainbow shouted, throwing her hooves up in the air. Many conversations began amongst the ponies as they began to trot their way back to Ponyville. On the way there though, Vinyl posed a question for the Faunus. “Got any kind of interesting stories for the trip? I feel like today will be a long day.”
“That depends on if you want to hear about the Grimm or not.” Sun told her, remembering his encounters with the Behemoth when he was with Deathwing in that pocket dimension.
"Ooh, sounds interesting.” Vinyl replied, taking off what appeared to be arm warmers and putting them back in her pack. Sun didn’t even want to question why she would be wearing them in the summer, but just rolled with it. “Are they some sort of monster? Do they look like Grim from ‘The Grim adventures of Billy and Mandy’?”
Sun facepalmed… or more likely, face-tailed himself. “Definitely not. Grimm are creatures that are formed from the negative emotions of others. Like Sorrow, Anger, Wrath, Pride and so on. They mostly take on the forms of animals.” At the sound of this, Vinyl seemed only a tad bit disappointed. But the Faunus began to see something lurk in the clouds above them. Something that he assumed, formed from the hatred of the Daft Punk pony knock offs they saw earlier.
“Oh, they sound dangerous. So are there any differences between them?”
“Quite. Some are Beowolves… Two headed snakes…” He was about to say the Nevermore, until he looked back into the sky, stopped walking and grabbed Ruyi and Jingu Bang. A nevermore was coming straight at them and it was just as big as it looked in RWBY. “Oh COME ON!?! Seriously!? NOW!?!”
Vinyl was confused at what he meant, but her eyes soon widened at the sight of the monster bird that was above them. “Uh, that a friend of yours Sun?”
“That is NOT a friend of mine. Everypony, take cover!” Sun yelled, leaping towards the trees as the Nevermore began to rain down it’s feathers like a storm of needles. The Faunus saw Vinyl and the others duck behind some rocks while he tried to get on top of the trees to somehow get himself closer to the gigantic Grimm.
“So, how do we kill it?” Vinyl asked. In Sun’s mind, he was yelling ‘You’re seriously asking me this NOW!?!’
“I would say try to take it down or blow it’s head off. Take your pick!” He yelled back, trying to see if he could get any closer to the monster. He thought he heard Vinyl say something, but couldn’t hear it because of the gushing wind as the Nevermore swooped past him. All he did hear was that Vinyl needed some time. As he got up on top of the trees, he looked down and noticed that something was off.
“Where’s Octavia?”
Vinyl blinked, looking back at Sun. "She’s not with Twilight?" She asked.
“I thought she was with you!” Sun yelled back. Looking back upward, he catapulted himself using his bo staff like a pole vault and trying to get in the air. However, out of the few shots he tried to get off, only one of them actually hit the giant bird. He watched as Vinyl found the scared pony behind a bush as she rushed behind a rock. Relieved to see that she was okay, Sun went with a new plan of attack. He launched himself upward, only to this time grab onto the sturdy tail feathers of the Nevermore.
“Hey Vinyl, whatever you’re going to try and do, do it NOW!!!”
The DJ must’ve heard him because a few minutes later, Vinyl ran out into the open field to catch the birds attention, offending it by referring to it as ugly and saying that it’s mother was an Omelette. As the bird dived towards her, she threw something that made sun think that it was a grenade. Getting an idea, he swung forward, caught the explosive, threw it into the birds open beak and fired Ruyi Bang, causing it to explode.
“Hasta la vista, baby!”
As Sun landed back on the ground, the Grimm faded away into a corpse of shadows, but Vinyl herself wasn’t happy at the faunus. In fact, she had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him intently. “Why did you blow up the wub-nade?! It’s not suppose to just blow up like that, that’s a waste of a blue chip!”
“I thought it was an explosive. Why? Does it work differently?” Sun asked. He honestly had no clue how the DJ’s stuff worked and didn’t really think that she was going to listen to reason. Vinyl sighed. Clearly, she needed to explain how her tech worked.
“When it goes off it releases wubs and sound using magic to create enough force to disorient a living creature and cause it to have no feeling in their limbs. That's the normal one, the one I threw would've released wubs and sound hard enough to do serious internal damage and then explode. Even more damage would be done when Big Bird swallowed the wub-nade, and the explosion would've been bigger."
“True… But I didn’t know that at first. Sorry for jumping to conclusions.”
“Can't fault you… I guess it doesn't honestly matter as long as the chip was vaporized in the end..." Sun wasn’t clear about what kind of chip she was referring to, but just rolled with it. "I gotta say though, grasping the bird’s tail and riding it was pretty ballsy. At least you didn't land on your pretty face when you jumped back down right?” Vinyl looked at his tail. “Also, I’ve been meaning to ask, but why do you have a tail?"
“Faunus like me are known to have traits of animals. For me, I have the reflexes and speed of a monkey.”
Vinyl seemed interested, eyeing Sun’s tail again. “Is that so…? That’s pretty cool. Must be neat having a tail, I’ve kinda been wanting to pet it.”
“Well, it does kind of serve as like an extra hand. Kind of takes a bit to get use to at first, but like anything; you adjust over time.” Sun sighed, looking up to see a certain unicorn walking towards them. “Incoming Twilight, 6 o’clock.”
“Wha-?”
“Figure of speech. What I mean is… She’s right behind you. And she looks like she has quite a few questions for you.” Just as soon as Sun said that, Twilight trotted towards the two Displaced. Her eyes were showing clear interest as to what happened and worry at what might come next.
“Vinyl! What was that thing?! Are there more?!”
“That was the first time I ever saw something like that. Sun’ll be able to answer your questions much better, I’m still new to all this.” The DJ replied, bouncing the question back towards the Faunus and pointing at him. Twilight herself redirected her attention to him as he sighed.
“That was a Grimm and for now, I don’t believe anymore would show up. They’re creatures formed from negative emotions of the soul like Anger, Wrath, Greed, Pride and so on. Something tells me that the anger from the ponies we encountered earlier formed that Nevermore.”
Twilight sighed in relief when she heard that no more of the Grimm will show up. "Oh, good." She said, "I thought we would have to deal with a lot of those." Now she was beginning to ask for Murphy’s law to happen to her.
Vinyl soon interjected shortly afterwards. "Nevermore huh? I think I'll stick with 'Big Bird'. We should probably start walking again, this fight stalled us enough as it is."
All of them agreed on that as they began to trot back to town. Depending on how things would turn out, the trip could be for a long amount of time. But out of this, Sun and Vinyl had obtained a newfound sense of respect from Octavia.
Things soon turned to look out better for them in the long run when they saw a sign on the side of the road. Cutting corners and not directly following the tracks shaved a lot of time off the travel.
The sign said Ponyville, 2 miles ahead.
“Finally!!” Rainbow Dash shouted. “We’re so close, I can taste it!!”
“Hang on Rainbow, not everypony here can be as fast as you can.” Sun told her, causing her to look back at the faunus.
“Oh COME ON!!” Rainbow complained. “After what you did against that Bird freak, I’m sure you could keep up with me.”
“Maybe… but what about everypony else? You can’t think about just yourself.”
"We'll get there soon enough Rainbow, it's just two more miles." Vinyl’s words, along with a nod from Sun, Rainbow groaned a little as she came back down to earth to be with her friends. Though, she did glance over at Sun. Possibly for the comments that he made earlier. During the walk, Sun and Vinyl had the chance to talk amongst themselves, also telling her about the situation with the changeling queens. It wasn’t long though until something caught the Faunus’ attention.
“Hey, is it just me or am I seeing a red barn up ahead?”
Vinyl looked up, smiling a little at the sight since she had to change clothes because of the humidity. “Sweet! It’s Sweet Apple Acres!”
“Finally! Home Sweet Home!!” Applejack hollered as she trotted forth.
“Dear Sweet Celestia, my hooves are killing me!!” Came a complaining Rarity.
“Aw sweet! I can finally get to napping! And practicing for the Wonderbolts!” Shouted Rainbow.
“Well, it’s sweet to get a break now if I do say so myself.”
“Oh! I can’t wait to get back to Sugarcube Corner and eat all those yummy sweets again!” Shouted Pinkie.
Around now, Vinyl had the urge to shout out loud for somepony to please save her from insanity. Especially when Granny Smith began to talk to Applejack from her rocking chair. “Well, my oh my. AJ, Who’s tha sweet fella’ over there under the tree?”
While the two of them were talking, Sun and Vinyl were resting on the ground underneath one of the apple trees. During this though, Sun had his back turned and was unaware of what was going to catch him by surprise. That was… until Vinyl asked him a question. “Sun, How good are you with fillies?”
“I beg your pardon-?”
“CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS, MONKEY CATCHERS YAY!!!” Came the sound of three familiar filles as they used the opportunity to pounce on the Faunus.
“NOT AGAIN!!”
Vinyl was now laughing uncontrollably while looking at the four of them They ended up in a dogpile with the three crusaders sitting proudly on top of a prone monkey boy. Only for him to straighten himself back up with Scootaloo hanging onto his tail and Sweetie Belle hanging onto his shoulders. They had no idea that Sun was that strong to get up after three fillies try to get the jump on him like they were hunting monsters. Now, Applebloom was standing in front of the Faunus. Shocked.
“Well, I guess we won’t be getting our cutie mark in that.” Deadpanned Scootaloo from Sun’s tail.
“Yeah…” Said Sweetie Belle from her perch.
“Play nice Monkey Boy.” Vinyl teased Sun, trying to make sure that he didn’t do anything to hurt the three of them. Sun’s response was to use his tail to place Scootaloo on his other shoulder and sit down, deciding it would be best to have fun and start to tickle all three of them.
“Still very ticklish…” Sun smiled, rubbing both of Scoot’s ears and careful not to mess with Sweetie’s horn. “But it’ll take more than that to try and catch me.”
“Is that a challenge?”
“No, it isn’t.” Sun sighed. “Besides, I’m trying to rest a little after fighting an oversized crow.”
Around now, Applejack had called Applebloom and her friends over, leaving the DJ and Sun to rest against the tree that they were at. But then, something else happened. A letter appeared out of nothingness and landed in Sun’s lap. Sun looked at the letter and judging from how his expression was, he could recognize something about the envelope.
“What is it?” Vinyl asked. Sun honestly, didn’t have words to describe it. But tried his best as he looked at the invitation.
“Remember my cousin? The one that got Displaced as Gunvolt?”
“Yeah, why?”
“This is a letter from him. His seal is on the front.” Sun could tell it was from him because the Seal was the same symbol as the Hairpin that he used for a token. He slowly unraveled the parchment and began to read it. “Oh, cool. Didn’t even know you could send letters to other Displaced. So… what kind of letter is it?” Vinyl asked.
“Let’s see…” Sun replied, beginning to read the letter.
Dear Sun Wukong,
You are coronally invited to attend the Royal wedding of Maxine Caulfield and Lance Walker. The wedding is scheduled to occur four months from now, but Mr. Walker would like to ask you to be the Best man for this special occasion. You can find more information about the events of the Wedding on the attached Itinerary below.
Sincerely
Twilight Sparkle, Student of the Grandmother and event organizer
P.S. Each recipient is allowed to bring only one guest, but must notify us about them in advance.
“Holy… Sh*t…”
“What? What?!”
To answer her question, Sun read the statement again. “Dear Sir or madam…… You are coronally invited to the wedding of Maxine Caulfield and Lance walker… Oh dear god, my cousin’s getting married.”
He then showed the attached photograph of the pair and the fillies that were with them. Vinyl’s response… was because of seeing a filly Rainbow Dash. “Awww. She’s cute…… So, this must be a shock, I’m guessing?”
“Well, Lance did say he had to leave early to take care of something… wait…” He looked closer, now noticing something else. “On the Itinerary, there's a baby shower two days before the wedding… Oh you have got to be kidding me…”
“Well, congrats to them I guess. Never saw a point to baby showers myself though…”
“Right… Last I checked, Lance was 16… God, that thought makes me feel disturbed.”
“Well, teen pregnancy is on the rise…” Vinyl replied. That did not help sooth anything in Sun’s mind at all.
“True… but you don’t know how old Max here is… and if she was like the usual case for Displaced… then she would be over 1000 years old wouldn’t she?” Sun asked.
“Well… it depends, was she trapped in stone… or actually living those past 1000 years?”
“Trapped I believe. I don’t know all the details… But I do notice a couple of things from this photo. The background was by a pair of statues of both the Princesses, but if you look closely enough, you can see that they’re memorial statues.” One thing with Sun was that he could see things and details that other people might normally miss. When showing this to Vinyl, she herself was quite surprised.
“Well if she was trapped then it shouldn’t matter… to me at least. Because let’s be honest I am also technically over a 1000 years old and if I date people in my technical age range I’d be with either the Princesses or Discord. And while Mr. Lancie is a fun guy, he isn’t really my type, neither are the Princesses. To be honest I don’t know what to make of those statues. But if you think that your cousin knows what he is doing and is a good judge of character… then you should at least give them benefit of the doubt until you actually meet this Max girl.”
“I am… but there's another thing… Looks like Max is Royalty.”
“Oh? Wow, it seems your cousin shot high and scored a bullseye.”
Sun facepalmed himself before Pinkie zipped in and surprised us. Looking at me, she said “Leave the jokes to the professionals,” before going back over to her friends.
Vinyl looked back at Sun, shrugging her shoulders. “Tough crowd.”
Sun sighed a little to himself. “Right… And on another note, Lance is asking me to be his Best man.”
"That's neat. You gonna do it?"
“Yeah, but I’ve never been asked to do something like this before. I’m kind of nervous.” The Faunus replied, some drops of sweat rolling down his back.
"No worries, I was a best man at one of my friend's weddings. It's not hard."
“Right… Hey, do you have anything going on in four months… This might sound awkward… But the letter says that I can bring a guest.” Sun told her as he showed the bottom half of the letter and the sign that said that.
"Not really no. But if you want me to come I can."
“It’s your choice of whether you want to go or not. I’m not trying to force you or anything.” Sun explained, the Faunus straightening himself up. “Now, maybe we should get to one other thing before I head back home.”
Vinyl looked surprised when she looked back at Sun. Sighing a little about remembering her request for Sun to teach her Self Defense, she replied. "Oh yeah, so how are we going to do this?"
“Well… THINK FAST!”
Without warning, The Faunus used his tail to cause the DJ to trip as he leaped over her and began to run. “Better keep up if you want to get some payback!”
Of course, Sun had a reason for doing this, but he wasn’t going to share it to Vinyl just yet. He watched as Vinyl narrowed her eyes and ran forth at him, trying to throw a punch at his face, only for Sun to push it to the side and cause her to stumble past him. He sighed calmly.
“You’re letting your emotions affect your attacks. You need to be calm and collected before you engage in a fight.”
“So Why the hell did you knock me over!?” Vinyl shouted back in frustration.
“To evaluate your reactions and see what you would do.” Sun spoke again, his tone making him remember Master Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, “That way, I can see what we need to work on.”
And from what Sun saw, Vinyl had a LOT to learn. Her posture was off, feet weren’t planted and her feelings were affecting her attempts to strike him. For Sun, he had learned martial arts back home; including Tai Chi, Karate, and Jiu jitsu. It was originally meant for him to learn self defense, but then he found it as his way to let out any frustrations that he had and the time he spent in meditation and training helped diminish any stress that he might have accumulated over the course of the day.
“So, what do I need to work on?” Vinyl replied, annoyed.
“Two things…” The Faunus began to speak, raising up two of his fingers. “First, you need to fix your stance and make sure your feet are firmly on the ground along with firmly using your arms when you attack. Second, and don’t get mad when I say this, your attitude.”
Vinyl’s eyebrows immediately raised upward at this point. "What's wrong with my attitude?"
“You’re are angry. Stressed out… Pissed off perhaps. All of those factors can cause you to make mistakes in a fight. And a mistake is the last thing you would want.” Sun explained. The one time he made a Mistake in his feelings affecting him was in the Pocket dimension, where a behemoth formed from his anger because of it.
"I guess..."
“There’s no guess about it,” Sun corrected, “You want to help the girls right? So you need to do what you can and, to put it in your terms, not let the beat drop too early.”
"Yeah, you're right." The DJ sighed, "So how do I improve myself?"
“You can’t improve overnight, but you do seem flexible to pull off punches and kicks…” Sun said, evaluating her actions earlier. “Maybe you should practice while listening to music. Nothing with Vocals, just instrumentals and let the flow and beat of the song allow you to come up with different combinations of punches and kicks. Oh and nothing slow. Sometimes, Aero Chord-Ctrl, Alt, Destruction helps me focus.”
She hummed a little. That was a good sign. "Can you show me the correct stances for punches and kicks and things like that?"
“It depends on your skill level and focus. Just make sure to keep your hands open so if your opponent tries to strike first.” There wasn’t really a right or wrong way to do a fight stance. It just depended on your combat style. Sun demonstrated a few, just in case, so Vinyl had some options. She really seemed to like the one he did on Crimson Viper from Street Fighter.
Vinyl’s next question to Sun was brief, but important. "You can counter?"
“Counters depend on timing and your opponent. Remember when you tried to punch me a few moments ago?” He asked. “That was me countering you. Anytime you try to defend yourself, you need to throw your opponents off their game and a good way of doing that is pushing their arms away from your body. That way, their face can hit the ground.”
“I see… That’d be better than my face.”
“That should be just about it. You can summon me if you have anymore questions okay?” Vinyl nodded her head and with that, Sun used his coin to tear open a rift back to his own world. He leaped forth, ready to come back to his home.
Fluttershy’s Cottage
Sun came back to the cottage to find Angel and Henry outside along with a young dog that he had not seen before. When the dog saw him, he was greeted by a bunch of happy kisses and left something for him in his lap. It didn’t seem like Fluttershy was home. Maybe she was with her friends to comfort the Yaks that were going to the castle.
“A present? For me? How kind of you.” Sun replied, petting its ears and seeing the collar around it’s neck. Spelling out Winowa Apple. Apple? That last name sounded quite familiar to Sun since it was the name of one of Fluttershy’s friends. Now though, he focused a little more on what was dropped in his lap. It looked like a bone and a ball, but they somehow resembled a Holy Bone and Cherry bomb from Okami. But right now, he didn’t have much time to think about that as his attention was focused back on Winowa. He now had an idea.
“Hey there, Wanna play fetch?”
End Tail 8
