Pony Nation

by TimidWolf

Prologue: Vinyl

The sharp sound of galloping hooves against pavement cut through the night air of the city. The white unicorn dodged left and right to avoid hitting pedestrians on the sidewalk. She came too close to one of them, pushed past and nearly knocked him over.

The man stumbled a bit, then regained his balance. "Hey!" he yelled at the offending pony. "Watch it!"

Vinyl Scratch's neon blue mane flew in the wind as she kept running. She didn't stop to apologize or slow down to look behind her. She couldn't look back. Her rapid breathing and pounding heartbeat made her feel like a freight train barreling down the tracks. She had to get home as soon as her hooves could possibly carry her.

The day had been too much for her. Ever since that morning it felt as if her entire life on Earth was falling apart. The explosion in St. Louis was what started everything. First she lost her job, then her friends started disappearing and now it seemed like every human on Earth was against her. Vinyl knew that she would be harassed if she stayed still anyplace.

The apartment building was just a few more blocks ahead of her. Vinyl used her magic to press the button on the headset in her ear, which made the phone strapped to her right foreleg light up. The white rectangle of light cast an eerie, glowing streak in the darkness. "Dial Tavi!" she shouted, and waited. The phone rang five times before it picked up. "Hello, this is Octavia," the message started. "I can't come to the phone at the moment, but please leave a message and I'll call you back straightaway. Cheers!"

After the tone, she yelled, "Tavi, it's Vinyl again, where are you?! I've been calling you all night, girl, stuff's getting crazy out here! It's the same thing all over the news! Look, if you get this just meet me at home and we'll figure out what we gotta do! Laters!" Vinyl magically tapped her headset again and hung up. She crossed the last street and reached the front of her building.

She reached the front door of the apartment building just as a pizza deliveryman was walking out. She slipped past him and said, "'Scuse me, thanks," before he could realize who he let inside. Vinyl tromped up four flights of stairs to the second floor, cantered down the hall and stopped at the third door on the left. She took a minute to catch her breath.

"Home sweet home," she thought aloud as she magically unfastened the wallet on her left foreleg, opened it and slipped out a small metal key. It floated to the lock and slid in.

She tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge. Vinyl concentrated on turning the key harder, but it still didn't turn. Then she stopped using her magic, turned her head and gingerly put the key between her teeth. Even after using her jaws and neck muscles, it still wouldn't move. "Are you kidding me?" She asked the door as she magically slid the key out and put it back in her wallet.

Vinyl walked back to the stairwell and stomped back downstairs to the bottom floor. She walked down the hall to the last door on the right where her landlord lived. Vinyl banged her front hoof against it so hard she left curved indentations in the wood.

"Hang on!" said a gruff man's voice on the other side. About a minute later the door opened. The security chain kept a narrow view as the bald bearded man peered through. "All right, what the hell is-" He started grumbling before he looked down and spotted his tiny reflection in Vinyl's sunglasses. "Oh, it's you."

"Yeah, that's right, it's me!" she yelled up at him. "What gives, man? My key doesn't work!"

"It's because I changed the locks," he told her curtly. "You don't live here anymore."

"What?!" she yelled again. "We just paid the rent Tuesday! What do you mean, we don't live here anymore?"

"They came earlier and picked up your friend," the landlord explained. "I thought they got you too. I guess they're still out looking."

"They took Tavi?" She asked, her voice laced with panic. "When were they here? Where did they take her?"

"Around four o'clock," he answered. "And how should I know where they took her? They came here for you two, not me."

"They didn't say anything about where they went?"

"Look, if you want to know so bad, why don't you go and ask them?" He sneered at her and continued, "Then you can go with them and find your friend. They're just trying to keep you horses safe, anyway."

Vinyl gritted her teeth. She was sick and tired of being taunted with the word "horse" coming out of everyone's mouth. "I'm not going with any people anyplace," she said firmly. "And they're not trying to keep us safe. All they're doing is putting us someplace else so everybody can pretend we don't exist."

"If that's what you want to believe, horse."

There was that word again. Vinyl was livid. Her face felt like it was on fire. "So where's our stuff?"

"I dumped it in the back alley," he answered.

"You did what?!" she growled and stomped a hoof. "This is unreal! You can't do that!"

"Look, missy," he said, "you and I both know what's happening. Come the end of the week all of you ain't gonna be around anyway. I dumped your stuff because I gotta find new renters now, and they can't know that I had horses staying here."

At that moment Vinyl heard a metallic click on the other side of the door. She held her breath and backed up a step; she may be a pony, but she was on Earth long enough to know the kind of noise a pistol makes.

"Listen, horse," the landlord grumbled, "it's late and I've got to get up early to get an apartment ready to rent. I'll give you twenty seconds to leave my building. I don't want to see you anywhere around here again." He slammed the door.

"Aw, buck," Vinyl whispered to herself before she turned and ran back down the hall to the front door. She kicked it open and bounded down the cement steps, then stopped to look around and get her bearings. The alley should be around this way, she thought as she looked toward a street corner to her left.

"Hey, look, there's one!" someone yelled to her right.

Vinyl turned her head to see two human men approaching her. They each held an amber glass bottle in one hand and were making "come here" motions with the other. "Here, horsie," one of them slurred. "C'mere, we ain't gonna hurt ya..." As they took steps toward her she turned and started to back away from them. "Dude, she's gonna run," the other whispered to his friend. "Let's just grab her and take her to the fuzz."

She spun around and took off down the sidewalk. They chased after her as she galloped down the sidewalk and turned the corner. The alley to her right was blocked off with metal trash cans, which Vinyl anticipated and lept over. Her pursuers crashed into them and fell to the asphalt covered in garbage. She stopped again and looked behind her to see the humans staggering to their feet.

"Aw, shit," one of them grumbled as stood up and looked into Vinyl's wide eyes. He looked down, found his beer bottle and threw it at her. It shattered in front of her and sprayed glass and beer into her mane. His friend threw his, which nearly hit her in the head. She dodged it and it broke behind her. Vinyl ran down the alley as they called after her, "We're gonna get ya, horse! Why don't ya just go home?!"

The streetlamps gave the men silhouettes which cast towering shadows down into the alley. After they left the mare's sight, she looked in the other direction down into the alley's inky blackness. She walked further into the alley and used her horn to light her way. Vinyl looked around the metal cans and black garbage bags up against the walls for any sign of her things. As she approached the back wall, she took a step and felt something crack beneath her hoof.

She looked down and found a flat chunk of a broken record. As she picked it up with her magic and looked at the label, she immediately recognized it as one from her personal collection. "Aw, no," she said. Vinyl put it down, looked to her right and saw the remains of her Equestrian record collection. The cardboard box she kept them in was crumpled in a heap, likely crushed under a human's boot. As she searched more of the alley she found other possessions of hers and Octavia's in similar states. Vinyl didn't see Tavi's bass. She feared it was stolen and probably sitting in a dirty pawn shop by now.

Vinyl found her comforter from her bed. She magically moved it aside and a few rats scurried out from between the folds. They were already nesting in the new garbage. She held it up, shook it out and laid it back down behind some garbage bags. Satisfied that she would be concealed from prying human eyes, the white unicorn laid down upon it and closed her eyes. As she did, the words of the drunk human echoed in her head:

Why don't ya just go home?!

"I wish I could go home," she whispered to herself as tears rolled down her muzzle. "I really wish I could."