//------------------------------//
// An Exchange of Positions 
// Story: Fangs: The Order 
// by Sapphic 
//------------------------------//


*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*...Octavia...*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*~~~~*


My hooves felt light as I walked forwards, light enough that I felt I could probably take flight if I wanted to. Though, at the same time, the weight I had on the ground still felt the same. I guess I better way to envision it was to imagine that it was as if my legs were the host of someone who weighed much more than I - someone like a dragon- and were now on me.

I had propped Vinyl's mother up against a wall before I had gotten up, her body moving surprisingly easy. 

I wasn't even entirely focused on any one thing at the moment, more or less just looking around and admiring things in the scenery that I hadn't noticed before. Small cracks around the room, the individual hairs on my coat, the colors on all the other people in the room; it was all in such a high detail.

I had had moments before that were like this believe it or not, not to this scale of course, but a similar experience nonetheless. It would happen every now and again if I spent too much time inside and then went outside with a heavy conscious; looking at something that I might see everyday - like a tree or a park - and see it in a new light.

It was as if my mind was in a constant, observative state; looking into things more than just with sight.

I noticed I was wandering, eyes at my hooves, and sort of just walking in a direction that happened to be towards Vinyl fighting with her friends and that other mare.

I found myself wondering if Vinyl would like to get some tea after this, as if victory was already assured. At the same time I wondered if Vinyl was really the tea-type, as I had never really sat down and had a cup with her. I also wondered if she was alive when tea was invented, and if she had any tips.

I felt my body almost stumble to the side on its own, the vague sound of whistling coming from my ear as I did, before resettling almost just as instinctively.

I realized I had just dodged something, whatever it might have been, but my head kept on running through things I'd be doing afterwards.

Would Vinyl's mother be staying after this? Had I even become a vampire? You'd think becoming something so powerful and iconic would take more than simple bit and injecting. Would I have a guest bed ready for Vinyl's mother if she was staying, or would I give her mine and take the couch?

I knew Vinyl would probably want to sleep with me, so if I took the couch she'd probably come with me. Then again, knowing her mother, she might end up joining us anyways.

"Octavia, what are you doing?! Get back, Vinyl's not right!" A whisper warned me from beside, but thought easily drowned it out.

One of my hoofs moved up, touching something that felt like the hoof of someone else, and then pushed them out of the way gently. I hadn't even realized someone had touched me.

What ever happened to Bigs? He said he'd visit the bar sometime, but I hadn't seen him since the castle. Was he running the place now? DId his master ever die? It seemed like it, but if he was anything like Vinyl then it seemed unlikely that he would be so easily killed.

I noticed my hoof ran out of my view, going somewhere beside my head and hitting something solid. It felt like I had hit a wall, though without the pain of such an action, but my hoof certainly did stop as if I had hit one.

My eyes turned, peering up into pools of red that didn't quite understand why their own hoof had been stopped.

My eyes went back down.

I began to push forwards, the wall that my hoof had hit seeming to strain against my own until it finally gave out and my arm fully extend.

Silence made the sound of something crashing into rock easily hearable.

My hoof came back down to reunite with my other one, both of them standing parallel with each other while I admired the two before I decided to start walking forwards again.

Would I visit my parents? What about Harpo and Beauty? Maybe I could meet them both on the same day. Perhaps an early breakfast with Harpo and Beauty, possibly going to the theater to watch them gawk at Vinyl's criticisms of what was called "a good performance" these days, and then we could follow up by meeting my parents later for dinner. 

Yes, that sounded good. But where to go?

Vinyl would probably favor a bar, but I know she wouldn't complain wherever we went so long I had a good time. She was like that; selfless when it came to others enjoying themselves at the expense of herself. The only problem with a bar would be how much my father would like to have a drinking challenge with a mare who's liver knows no bounds. He was reserved in his household, but going out into the public was his time to be free - quite odd really.

I don't think my mother would quite like the atmosphere of the bars that Father would like. Vinyl was pretty easy to please, not really caring about how she was outwardly looked at by others and being fine with going just about anywhere, but mother would like to keep up appearance - something that didn't meld well with Vinyl's mentality.

Though, maybe if I coaxed her enough, Vinyl could act regal and eloquent for my sake.

'That would be interesting.' I giggled to myself.

Still, on the off chance begging Vinyl didn't work, I'd have to find a place where Vinyl and Father could drink peacefully, or competitively if the occasion arises, and at the same time a place where Mother could feel appreciated by the crowd.

I felt my nose scrunch up in frustration.

I turned and looked to Shakes, who I assumed would be the most informed on the topic, and asked her for advice.

"Shakes, do you think that your bar would be a good place to take my parents? If not, where would be a good place for my parents and Vinyl to drink and eat well together?" I asked.

Shakes herself was staring into my eyes as if she had never seen them before, but quickly shook that away and snuck her hoof up to her chin in thought. The ashy grey mare beside her and her sister on the other hoof, had a slack jawed look on their face as if they had just seen a ghost or something of that nature.

"Well, bar's been abandoned since Vinyl left, so you and your parents might help me get it back off the ground." She said, hoof rubbing across her chin while her brows furrowed. 

I noticed she kept sneaking glances up to my eyes, occasionally lingering a bit too long and ripping her eyes away by force.

"Do you think my parents would mind going to an empty restaurant? I'd think my mother would be entirely against it with her urge to impress others..."

"Could just tell 'em that you rented out the whole place to yourselves? I'm sure she'd get plenty of gawking on her way to the bar if anything. Damn drunks." She suggested, quirking her brows.

I smiled at that. Mother would love the idea of renting out a restaurant to herself, and the gawking from the homeless would be great for her ego. She was honestly a very humbled pony, just not when it came to appreciation of her style and looks - and even there she didn't care who exactly was gawking, just that they were. My father wouldn't mind so long as mother was happy, and Vinyl wouldn't mind either way. 

It was perfect.

"Hey, uh, Octavia?" Shakes called, snapping me out of thought.

"Hm?" I said, looking up suddenly, and getting her to recoil a bit when we made eye contact.

"As much as I appreciate the business you plan to be giving me, mind fixing up this whole, uh, Vinyl situation?" She asked, pointing off to somewhere behind me.

I turned eagerly at the mention of Vinyl, but tilted my head and cocked a brow when all I saw was a white looking mare stumbling up from a pile of rubble. She had the posture of a wet rag, and seemingly the support of one as well judging by how she teetered from side to side when she got up before finally evening out. 

She had the smile you might see on some sort of demon that lived off of others, grinning madly at receiving emotion regardless of what kind it was; as if she'd thrive off of hate and anger just as much as she'd thrive off of love and care - a true product of environment. I could imagine she might've had a preference between the two, but I couldn't tell from an outward look at that grin. 

And not to mention her feathered looking hair, streaks of two types of color running through it. No matter how much I looked at it, I couldn't quite figure out how the two managed to stay perfectly separate from each other all while looking like a mess. A darker looking and borderline brooding looking dark blue mixing so well with the playful and energetic look of the almost artificial looking neon blue.

It looked like Vinyl, outwardly at least, but she didn't have the mix of play and prowl that Vinyl did. Too much attempts at actually causing harm, and not enough playing around to show that she could cause said harm.

My eyes narrowed on the form that raised her head to look at me with a newfound grin that contrasted the confused look from before. It looked eager, but for all the wrong reasons.

She bent down jaggedly, picking up a piece of the rubble she had been shot into, her hoof arching back like you might see a pitcher in hoofball would.

There was an odd pause between the action and release, too short to call it a pause for dramatic effect and too long for it to be considered unintentional.

Then as it released, an odd explosion came from it as it exited - but there was no bright light as there would be from a magical one.

I lost sight of the rock as it left her hoof, but it came quickly back into view as it slowed to a near halt in front of my nose. Being so close to my nose gave me plenty of time to give it a good look over, admiring the deep running cracks and texture of the rock before dipping my head into my shoulder to let it continue to rocket past me.

An odd shift of the air caught my attention, my eyes opening and my neck straightening back out to see the Vinyl look-a-like had made its way to in front of me.

She was posted in the air, both of her hooves clumped together high in the air in an attempt to slam down on my and send me into the ground.

'Well, she does have the in general, occasional, and foolish unpredictability that Vinyl does.' I thought, admiring the odd position of her in the air before breaking out into a small smirk.

'It's a start, but we still have a long way to go before she's back in order.'

At this point, I knew the husk of Vinyl had the clear advantage of speed over me, but I also knew that I had the advantage of the time to think of a way to react around her speed.

So, I figured I'd test the waters a bit.

I took a sidestep, practically jumping to the side to just barely make it out of the way of the thundering hooves that came down and crashed into the floor below me.

Eyeing her with I could only describe as a hunger, I jumped back towards her, rolling my back onto hers and hooking my hooves around her neck in a grip as gentle as the smile across my face.

I couldn't wait to get Vinyl back.

I pulled on my hooves, Vinyl's momentum being enough to let me use her as a way to pull myself back. I rolled off of her back, the hooves that were near Vinyl's flank now planted firmly on the ground with my front hooves now in more of a headlock around Vinyl.

I'd never been a fighter, not even a strategist for that matter, but I found that my body was moving seemingly on it's own with the situation. As if there was someone else in my head who knew how to fight, and they would step in whenever they needed without me knowing.

Vinyl was just now recovering from the off setting of balance both me and herself had caused her when I began my own initiative.

I found myself pulling back on Vinyl, using my grip around her head along with my hind legs to actually lift her up off the ground, my own hooves latched around her neck so that she wouldn't go airborne.

We must have looked like opposites from afar, my grey body standing straight as I held her up in a headlock while her own white legs went straight up into the air.

We seemed to stay there, the two of us both straight up for a while, until we began a quick descent downwards.

Almost cinematically, time slowed as we began the fall, making the brief fraction of a second we would've spent falling turn into a rough minute - giving me plenty of time to think as it happened.

I found myself feeling mixed about myself as we fell.

There was this weird feeling of something not being right at the idea of causing harm to Vinyl, but a sense of need in doing this so I could get her back. Truth be told I hardly felt in control during this whole confrontation, instincts and urges seeming to make my body move before my mind could find out if they were okay or not.

I could swear I heard whispers in the back of my mind, saying ungodly things I'd never have thought of.

I closed my eyes to blink, time progressing in that small fraction of a second.

The impact of the ground came before I opened my eyes. I figured I had hit the ground, the only reason I wasn't totally sure was because I only felt the wimpy bump on my head from where it should've hit the ground. 

I knew that the impact wasn't as light as I felt it was, and opening an eye confirmed it. New cracks ran across the ground for a dozen or so meters outwards from where I landed.

But the most important thing was that Vinyl was still. I felt relieved that she had stopped moving as she was arguably the most threatening thing in a good hundred or so miles, probably more. It was actually odd to feel my body relaxing, my eyes settling with just staring upwards towards the ceiling.

A blue mane and a devious grin came into view, causing my eyes to widen and my body to stiffen just before a hoof gripped me by the nape of my neck and yanked me upwards

I had never been on a carnival ride before, but the way that I was whipped around reminded me off the descriptions that others had told me about riding one. Feeling completely out of control of where you go, your body getting whipped around with shutters and pauses before going very rapidly and fluidly in one motion.

That carnival ride feeling came off strong as I was whipped back and forth by her hoof before she let go of the nape of my neck and I felt myself fly.

I managed to get a glimpse backwards, seeing that Vinyl had already started following me after throwing me, her body lined up as to shove both of her hind legs into me as soon as I landed.

I had almost forgotten about pain, the physical feeling of it that is, as I had never really gotten into a situation that I could call sincerely painful. Or maybe it was all of this vampiric whatever-it-was coursing through me that made me think I had forgotten about it, but I guess I was lucky that Vinyl was so eager to remind me.

Hitting the wall didn't hurt too bad, it was the stop that was more uncomfortable since my head rocked back and into the walls that had to have been marble. And on top of that, there was the two hooves that shoved themselves into my chest before using it chest like a trampoline.

I would've fallen limp after that if it weren't for the being so embedded in the wall that it was able to keep me up.

It was oddly silent in my head, less thought this time around oddly, and more of just images flashing by in a subliminal sort of way.

Some of first meeting Vinyl, of when I first encountered her and watched her curled up on my floor trying to keep herself away from me, of the time where she played the piano against Fredric, and even of the time when I beat her mercilessly over the head with the leg of a barstool.

At first I smiled weakly at the images, finding a bit of comfort in them.

Then I opened my eyes, and saw what had become of Vinyl in front of me.

Then I felt anger with each passing image, muscles clenching at each passing picture. Teeth gritting to the point of where a dental checkup would definitely need to be in order after this. She wouldn't be proud of this.

I didn't notice the concrete crumbling, releasing me from my hung state and dropping me down onto the ground.

Vinyl took no hesitation in rushing up to me with hooves raised.

This really wasn't her at all.

Something ran across my face, leaving an intense stinging to my cheek and jaw area, and I realized Vinyl had punched me.

I looked up to her, no emotion running through my face, seeing another hoof had already raised itself and was ready to come down.

'Remember Octavia, you're doing this for her.' I thought to myself in an attempt to justify my coming actions.

Her hoof began its quick descent and I finally moved.

My hooves moved over and caught it, gripping around her limb. I pulled harshly on her limb and spun with it, leading her into the same concrete that I had been in previously with a smash that sent a cloud of debris out from where landed.

I paused briefly afterwards; a mistake.

A white hoof came out of the cloud as quick as it had gone in, Vinyl's grinning face and torso following at as it came into the same cheek she had hit before. After that came another, and after that yet another until I finally managed to get my hoof up and block it. Despite actually blocking it, she didn't seem to have any plans on stopping.

She was reckless about her punches, so I slipped a hoof around one - quickly followed by the other - and pulled her close. I hopped up a little bit and stuck my hind hooves up between myself and her chest, using my body to throw her off balance.

We fell to the ground and I let loose a buck that, thanks to my hooves being so close to her already, sent her skywards about fifteen or so feet.

As she fell back down, I prepared another buck to connect with her head. Despite the brutality of the action, I remembered that last time she was acting funny, blunt damage to her head seemed to fix her.

Hopefully it would again.

She fell back to the ground, head turning to look me in the eyes just before she made it within range of bucking, showing a mischievous grin and a new set of eyes.

Dilated.

She finally made it in range and I let my back hooves go, crashing towards her just as the symbols on the band around her horn glowed brightly.

Only this time her horn actually sparked.

She seemed to shimmer in air for a minute, becoming slightly transparent as my hooves seemed to go through her, before disappearing completely.

My eyes widened.

She hadn't been able to use magic thus far, and it was why I considered myself having a fighting chance this time around. I figured I had that band around her horn to thank for that, but it looked like it had failed?

A pair of hooves wrapped themselves around me, causing me to yank my gaze back down to the ground in front of me to find a giggly white mare lying on the ground below me.

She had her hooves around my neck, making pulling me down to the ground on top of her an easy task, and made an easy connection with my lips. I felt a shiver down my spine as she kissed me, a heat raging over my body in mere seconds while my heartbeat spiked. 

I guess my mind seemed to rationalize giving into her; after all, she didn't seem to be fighting me right now so I guess she wasn't exactly against me right now. But it still felt a bit suspicious for her to just change like that on a dime, despite her having a healthy history of doing that before this anyways. 

But just being back with her like this was enough to override that suspicion.

Just as I felt myself beginning to melt in her hold, something that I had missed for as long as she had been away, something in my head seemed to click.

'Stop.' A voice in my head practically screamed.

My eyes widened and I began to struggle as something that wasn't my own thoughts spoke from inside my head. It seemed to protest me giving in to Vinyl's advances.

Instead, a new urge began to rise after the voice had spoken, something very foreign to me. It made my head feel fuzzy and my eyelids feel heavy. They went about halfway down before they finally felt like I could hold them open.

I readjusted myself from atop Vinyl, going from lying limply in her grasp to straddling her; legs situating on both sides on the lower part of her torso so that she couldn't bend at the waist.

Vinyl was quicker than she was strong, not to say she was weak in any regard, but I knew that her strongest point was her mobility. And I'd need to take that away if I wanted her to stay still.

She seemed to pick up on this, her half lidded and dilated eyes going wide and beginning to struggle under me. 

People, as I've learned, often forget about the advantages they have when they are in the moment. A reward of having an overly active conscious that consistently over analyzes everything I do was that I didn't forget those advantages that I had. Vinyl knew she had the advantage over me from the beginning, so she went into this fight cocky and playful like she normally did.

She must've never thought that the dead weight would resist her advances.

I'd always been introduced to things by Vinyl since meeting her, many new things like bars, drinking, dating mares, and even pain; but it was about time that I introduced her to something.

Losing.

But not by brute force, dilated eyes Vinyl and force were a bad matchup for force. I figured if you wanted to beat someone typically unpredictable, you'd have to beat them in a way even they wouldn't predict. Vinyl's mother had already made a point of it, I was dead weight in almost every sense of the definition, and Vinyl most likely knew that too.

So I'd beat her how she had beaten me in the past.

As I looked down at her, her face screamed displeasure, that displeasure turning into the movement of one of her hooves towards my chest So I brought about an old trick, and lifted my hoof up to her horn and gave it a gentle tap at first. 

I smiled as she stopped squirming and curled her face up in disgust for a few seconds before opening her eyes and looking into my own, filled with displeasure and resistance at first. But when she followed my hoof up to her horn, the resistance faded quickly.

I bent a bit lower, looking deep into her eyes while hers attempted to avoid eye contact while she still twisted her neck in vain in attempt to shake me off her. But when her eyes eventually locked with my own, she suddenly stopped her struggling. Something seemed to change in those dilated eyes when they locked with mine, and her stillness only further proved it.

Submission.

I took a minute to admire her.

She'd always been somewhat of a bastion of independence ever since I had met her and looked into her. I mean, having the courage to come into a town as socially unaccepting of the lower class as Canterlot was something, but it was another to put up with everything that she must've went through and still be so innocent. She had the mindset of a child at most times, being bubbly cheerful and almost sickly sweet, but at the same time being more independent than anyone and intimidating as the guards. 

But here she was now, stock still and looking up into my eyes with her own wide eyed red ones. Looking like a foal in the presence of her mother.

Submission wasn't something she was used to, and if it was true that she was operating on instinct alone, then perhaps - judging by how she was reacting - submission was in her instincts underneath all that playfulness.

And, it made me feel a bit odd; hot for some reason, which was suspicious considering I was sure that it was the room was the same temperature as it was before.

I lifted up from her briefly, turning and looking around the room to see if I could find the source of the blasted heat.

I couldn't find anything thought, other than the stock still figures of Shakes, Sweeps, and the grey one. The heat persisted, but seemed to tame itself when I started looking around.

I turned back to the obedient red eyes looking at me widely, both of her hooves nestled into her chest, and found that the blasted heat had begun to spike up even more.

I began to get frustrated, and quickly as well. My body began to move and fidget restlessly, my legs straddled over Vinyl starting incessant twitching and shifting over her. It eventually escalated to the point where I felt helpless to the heat and dipped my head down, groaning in frustration right beside of Vinyl's head.

What was this damned heat? What was causing it? Was it whatever Vinyl's mother had put in me? It had to have been, there was nothing else that could be causing this.

The tickling of a twitching ear caught my attention, causing my eye widen. I paused for a second before raising up to look at Vinyl again before finally realizing what it was that urge from before had meant, and what this heat had meant.

The heat welled up again as I began to pry Vinyl's hooves away from her chest, pressing them into the ground leaving her spread eagle.

I leaned in close, my cheeks flushing as my mind told me how wrong this was, yet the flushing through my entire body was telling me the exact opposite. Vinyl looked so helpless for once, exposed and compliant unlike ever before where she had always been the one to have me pinned on the ground and at her mercy.

For once, Vinyl was completely at my mercy here, and despite how part of me wanted to deny it, it felt good.

And judging by that adorable look on her face, she knew it too.

I found myself staring up at one of Vinyl's ears, the one that had tickled my ever so gently before, and looked down to see that Vinyl seemed a little nervous by me gaze. I was confused myself at first, but decided that it was worth looking into if Vinyl got nervous about it.

I moved to her ear, watching as she strained her neck to try and keep it away from me, but it served no use as soon enough I was practically on top of it.

I had seen in plenty of corny romance movies that I had watched in my youth - it was a phase, we all go through it - that biting ears was supposed to somehow be sensual. I had never quite understood it, infact it sounded quite repulsive, but never questioned it because of how it always did end up looking sensual.

Perhaps Vinyl wanted me to go for her ears? Afterall, trying to hid something is one way to get everyone to look at it.

I awkwardly moved my mouth up to her ears, feeling quite silly about this, but a small moan coming from Vinyl already showing that it was working.

I moved my lips around her fuzzy ear, opting to use my lips rather than my teeth to tease around her ear, which made Vinyl begin to fidget wildly as a heat of her own started to be felt by my legs.

I actual giggled, coming out much more lewdly than I thought it would, a little at seeing Vinyl squirm so much.

I was too absorbed in the moment to hear the murmuring coming from around me.

"So...this is happening."

"Wow...didn't know Octavia had it in her."

"We're gonna just gloss over the fact that this grey mare, who was previously getting her ass hoofed to her, just reduced Whitey to puddy? Alright, whatever."

"Well, looks like someone is gonna get their ass hoofed in a-"

"Shakes! Not appropriate!"

I wasn't sure where things were going to go from here, as I also wasn't sure how much self control I could exhibit seeing Vinyl being toyed with by myself, but it seemed like I wasn't going to have a say in the matter.

The sound of locks unlocking came out loud enough to break me away from Vinyl, looking up from Vinyl - who's ragged breaths were still very audible - to see a large metal door opening up.

Four figures stepped through the door, two of them I recognized and the other two I didn't.

One of them was mister Stone and Maple from the apartment across the hall from mine. The other two consisted of a single silver looking mare and another stallion, much smaller and slimmer than Stone, who was dressed in a sort of lab coat.

The silver one just sort of stared at us with a bit of confusion while Stone moved his hooves over to cover the eyes of Maple, which peeked over his hoof shortly after, while the one in the lab coat looked on as if he were taking notes.

I sighed.

I didn't know why they were here, but knowing how Flint was related to Stone and Maple somehow, I knew that it wasn't going to be good.

I looked back to Vinyl, still breathing heavily, and smiled at her before bending down closer to her ear again. She flinched when I did, but I made no move to tease her physically anymore.

"We'll be finishing this when we get home."