//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: Square One // Story: Awoke IN // by Qwix //------------------------------// Pennaprose blinked. In front of him was an expanse of white, broken occasionally by a streak of blue. He waved a hoof lazily at it, immediately overcome with an overpowering sway of vertigo. "Up, are you? Heh... about time." His eyes snapped wide open in a panic as the closeness of the voice shot his heart rate through the roof. He jumped up and tried to roll over, smacking his face into a wall. "You'd think that you'd be used to weird situations by now. Want a shot?" He rubbed his muzzle angrily, but looked over when he recognized the voice. It was Vinyl. "Vinyl? Where–?" She shoved a glass of something in his face. "My house. Where else?" He scrutinized the glass before him. "This isn't vodka or something, is it?" She waved a hoof irritatedly. "As much as I like vodka, no. It's just water. Why would I give you alcohol right after you woke up from being drugged?" His memory jogged, tightening his back. "Bassino..." "He's long gone by now. It's the morning after the Summer Sun Festival. Life goes on in Ponyville," said Vinyl. "There's something else a little bit more important to you, though." She walked away from the side of the makeshift cot. The room they were in was neat, a few abstract works of art hanging on the walls. Aside from that, everything one would expect in a room was there. Vinyl herself was digging in a dresser drawer. "Yet another one. Another Reset." "The rese-what now?" asked Pennaprose. She turned around, holding some sort of metal box. "The Reset, or rather... the Revolutionary Essence Severance Ex-memory Tests. To put it simply, it's a series of tests on an experimental procedure Bassino has been refining over the last few months. Heavens know why he named it what he did. But the device itself appears to overwrite or erase specific memories...” “And you know this and are telling me for no discernible reason except you apparently needed a sounding board,” snarked Pennaprose. “You live alone or something?” She tossed the box to him, glaring at him through her magenta shades. "This is a replica I've reverse-engineered. And considering we're both connected to PINCH, you'd do well to drop the snark and try being more helpful.” He turned the box over and over, examining it. There was nothing remarkable about it whatsoever; no features, no indents, nothing. “You know PINCH?” he asked. “In what capacity?” She took off her shades, revealing a startlingly red pair of irises. “Vinyl may be my name, but among PINCH, agents come to me first when they need some dirt on somepony. They know me as correspondent Vendetta; the more I personally hate them, the more dirt I'll dish. "And Bassino is a big one. What he is doing is highly illegal," continued Vinyl. "And even though I've broken the law like a pixie stick with a hammer thousands of times just to track him... his work is inadvertently looking to renovate the Canterlot club underground into what amounts to a drug ring. I don't take well to other ponies cutting into my DJ work.” She stormed to the door. “Find me downstairs when you're ready to hear more about your situation. I can tell you now that it isn't particularly pretty.” Without another sound, she whipped around the door, leaving him to his thoughts. He tossed the cube carelessly behind and him and followed. Bassino... I still don't understand why. I didn't take you to be malicious. If anything, you seemed to be rather... friendly. Something about you made me feel reassured... The stairs barely creaked as he descended them, surrounded by walls of white. He could here a faint sizzling from somewhere. He emerged into a living room, which emanated the essence of schizophrenia. There was a clean, discernible line down the middle, dividing the room into two distinct feels. The one he landed in was various shades of blue and amazingly messy beyond normal living standards. The other was comfortable shades of beige and neat to perfection. “AHGH!” He ducked instinctively, hearing a clattering steel noise above his head. Something warm landed on his head. “W-who are you? Vinyl, who is he?! Did you drag a random colt off the streets in the middle of the night again?” “Yes and nope, Tavi. He's a business contact.” “Contact,” she said flatly. “In your BED? Bah, I suppose I have to make more breakfast now...” He chanced looking up. A grey Earth mare with a frazzled dirty iron mane was standing in a doorway, dressed in a white robe and wielding a frying pan rather menacingly. She locked eyes with him for a second, then turned her snout up and stomped off in a huff. “Sorry 'bout that. Tavi doesn't like the fact I keep bringing home random stallions in the middle of the night.” On the couch in front of him, Vinyl's head was poking over it. “Course, it doesn't help that I actually do that, correspondence or not. Heh...” “Who was that?” Pennaprose asked. “She seemed awfully short-tempered.” “Sit, we'll talk more...” said Vinyl, gesturing over the couch. “Her name is Octavia Melody. She's my roomie, and she only has a short temper for anything related to me. 'Course, she was a big fan of your speeches.” He sat down next to Vinyl, frowning. “Er, was?” Vinyl dug into the couch cushions, pulling out a ragged newspaper. “About three days ago, the mayor gave a speech about the upcoming Summer Sun Festival. It was a small one, hardly garnering a large crowd. But you were credited with writing it; frankly, I thought she was going to build a shrine or something afterwards.” “What happened?” he asked, slightly hurt. “Did I say something wrong?” “No, not at all,” reassured Vinyl. “Right now, you haven't said anything to her at all. At least, nothing she can't recall... “The Reset, Pennaprose. Tavi is just one case—one in a thousand cases. What do you recall about last night?” He frowned. “I was with... Bon Bon, Cadance, Lyra, and Gosthette... we were discussing leads about Bassino. And a prophetic dream...” “Heh? A dream, really?” questioned Vinyl. “Loada shit.” “Not really, no...” said Pennaprose. “They're inspirational.” She looked sidelong past her newspaper with a raised eyebrow. “Having dreams are another way of saying you lack the will to make them a reality. Being inspired never helped anypony.” He scowled at her. “Anyway... we were talking. After Gosthette left, Lyra fell on me, stiff as a wooden plank and just as responsive. And then... he showed up.” “Exactly. He initiated the Reset.” She flipped the paper upside down and shoved in his face. Complex diagrams were drawn on it, containing arrows and symbols that danced around it in a seemingly random fashion. “The Reset has occurred where ever Bassino goes. The box he carries around doesn't seem to do it, but rather expedite it—rather, a minute drug dosage of something he appears to carry around seems to do the trick. “This drug is extraordinarily complex, appearing to attack motor muscles as well as parts of the brain that controls long-term memory preservation and short-term formation. But oddly, it doesn't fry memory completely; only specific elements within a memory are affected. Namely... anypony that everypony met for the first time within the last month. Experiences tied to them. Things like that. “I wish I could have extracted a sample from your bloodstream to test on, but it after it takes effect, it immediately breaks down into dozens of smaller acids. So I can't even begin to let PINCH know a countermeasure drug...” Something seemed off. He replayed Vinyl's words in his head, letting them write onto his lenses. Suddenly, one phrase jumped out at him, the meaning ironing itself into the back of mind like a cattle prod. “Vinyl... does this mean... everypony I've met since coming to Equestria... everypony... has forgotten about me?” “Mostly. You've only been around for about a month, give a few days... so anypony affected by the drug Bassino is playing with has forgotten you. Unfortunately for you, that means Lyra no longer knows who you are. Neither does Twilight nor the Mayor. Back to square one, at least I think so...” He put his hooves on his forehead, feeling a wave of cold spread through his soul. Lyra... you can't have... Twilight...? My income...? “Don't get all mopey on me, Penhead. Square one is still a place to go on from. Your piece is still on the board.” He felt her patting his back, but he found that he did not care. His eyes were too dry to cry, but his glasses slipped off as he hunched over, a wave of shivers taking over. “Vinyl... I literally have nowhere. Nothing. There is no square one...” “No. Ask yourself; how did I avoid the Reset?” He jerked his head up, a small light dawning in his mind's thunderstorm. “H-how?” “I've known about his tests for a while...” she began, taking off her glasses. “The nanobots that he uses to obscure his presence enters explicitly through the eyes and ears. ...With these shades and the headset I usually tote around, I can remain alert to his approach. He knows this, so he is never able to Reset me. “But there was one pony who was present that night that got out of range just in time. Who was that pony?” He sat, fighting back the lump in his throat. Scenes of last night replayed in his mind, until... “Gosthette!” Vinyl beamed. “Exactly! I can bet she wasn't affected! The only problem now is that you need to get in contact with her. Because you know what? She's in the same boat as you.” He paused, wiping the pooling tears from his eyes. I had forgotten Gosthette for a second, he thought, feeling slightly ashamed. That rare smile that adorned her face when she took to the sky was still fresh in his mind. He got up. “All right! There's a lot to do... and a lot of ground to cover! Where do we start?” “Hm. You say 'we'. I'm not going after you when you leave,” said Vinyl. “E-Eh? Why not?” he said, faltering. She sighed, twirling her glasses in midair with her magic. “Nopony knows where she went before the Reset, and now nopony even knows who she is. The only way both your past and her past can be proven to anypony now are physical traces both of you left. “I'm a correspondent, Pens. All I'm good for is collecting data. ...No, for what you need to do, only you can do it. But what is it you need to do? Who do you absolutely need at your side right now...?” He trotted to the door, thoughts racing to the forefront, all fighting for attention. “...Right. I'll see you around, then.” He raced full tilt outside, letting the fresh morning air bristle through the trees and through his mane. It invigorated him, spurring him onward in Ponyville—a town now both familiar and alien. If I've learned anything in the last month, it's that going it alone is a surefire way to fail. I need somepony by my side...