Drifting Through Realities

by Thadius0

Chapter 16 - Go ahead, arrest me. Let's see how that turns out.

Drifting Through Realities

Chapter 16 - Go ahead, arrest me. Let's see how that turns out.

The morning brought on two guards in the living room of Octavia and Vinyl's place. One, a pegasus, was standing at attention in the doorway, his armor still on, along with whatever spell that allowed them all to show up as the same. The one sitting in front of me was a unicorn. White coat, the most interesting blue mane and tail, due to the lighter and darker streaks running through it, lighter blue eyes, dark blue hooves, and a set of violet armor that practically screamed 'I'm special!'

I nursed the coffee Octavia had made while the guard across from me cleared his throat. I raised an eyebrow and he nodded towards a clipboard held in his magical aura. I wisely restrained myself from commenting on the fact that his aura's color was pink.

"Your name is Eric O'Mally?"

I nodded and drank. It was too early for me to be up without coffee. I think Octavia had taken tips from Vinyl as to how to make a proper cup of coffee, it seemed to be waking me up by smell alone. "Unless there's some other human living here, yes."

The guard across from me snorted a bit, but nodded. "Yes, well. You were involved in an incident at Pleasant Dreams, a nightclub here in Canterlot, correct?"

At this, I drank a bit more coffee before slowly placing the cup back on the table and looking at the guard over steepled fingers. "Look, mister..."

"Captain," he corrected. "Captain Shining Armor."

That explains the armor, then. "Captain Armor, my job is to be a bouncer at the club. That means keeping undesirables out. And I don't care what that stallion thinks of his attractiveness, his name is on the banned list for a reason."

One that Octavia had briefly explained to me when I carried Vinyl home. I still intended to ask her about it, because that was the polite thing to do. I intended to share some of my more...difficult memories in exchange. When I thought about it like that, it only felt right.

Shining Armor suppressed a chuckle and nodded. "Yes, understood. However, for my records, I need you to give an accurate account of your actions last night. Just for the report, you understand."

I nodded as well and ran a hand through my hair, humming a bit while I decided on a starting point. "I suppose...'begin from the beginning, and when you reach the end, stop.' That saying still holds weight. It's merely picking a point to start at..."

I then shrugged my shoulders and decided to start from my meeting with Fancy Pants. "I was meeting with a member of the nobility I can stand, one Fancy Pants, at the club where I work. Once he arrived, I had my backup take over for me while Fancy and I discussed business. Tempered Works, the royal smith, and I have an understanding, once that supplies a rare metal that could have a variety of uses. Once Tempered finds a glassblower that we can get along with, this understanding will have to include him as well. However, our talk was interrupted by Cloud Stuffer and his goons."

Shining nodded. "And that was when the fight started," Shining filled in. "I have a variety of reports, and I think I can discard the most outlandish ones, but I have two questions regarding it. Did you intend to do permanent harm, and did you throw the first blow?"

I shook my head. "Any and everything I did, I did to cripple, not maim. Those two should recover with time and care. And I may have been angry, but I never threw the first strike."

Shining crossed his eyes at his horn, grunted, but nodded. "Then if I may...why did you do nothing to the ringleader? To Cloud Stuffer?"

I smiled wickedly at that. "What better punishment to one such as him but to drag his name through the muck he has surrounded himself with? Now that I know a bit more about who and what he is, should I see him again, I'll do it again...and again...and again. It's not slander if it's true."

Shining seemed to draw back a bit at the thought of that, and I momentarily regretted that he was white-coated. It would've been funny to see him blanch...the guard-captain shook his head a few times, but nodded. "We'll be on the lookout for him, then, and if you find him...I suppose we won't begrudge you too badly if he's a little banged up by the time you bring him to us."

I nodded once, downed my coffee, and extended my hand. Shining met it with his hoof, and we shook on it. "See you around, sir, and take care. Who knows what lurks around in the shadows?"

Shining chuckled a bit, smiled, and left. The guard saluted once, then left as well. I sighed and massaged my temples. Vinyl had taken a day off today, which the club had been glad to give her, considering last night. It'd give me plenty of time to give the two musical mares a brief overview of my time in the world I landed in after Asimov's...

-----

Two bottles of mead sat on the table this time. One was open and in my right hand. The other was sitting in the center, still capped. I sighed and brought my memory back to one of the darker times in my life. The Fae Courts.

"Okay, so, the world after the world of robots was one of magic. Upon arrival, I was knocked out. When I woke up again, I was bound, chained, and forced into subservience to one of the more malicious races within the multiverse: The Fae." I drew a small pull from the bottle and sighed. "There are two courts. Seelie are the more...benevolent of the two. They're about upholding nature and the ideals of the good and the pure. They're still rule-lawyers, though. Break a rule or fail to obey one, and they can't help you."

Octavia nodded at that. "Much like how the Princesses helps those who help themselves."

I smiled at that. "Yes, something like that. The one I ended up subservient to was an Unseelie, one of the ones who twist and turn the rules on you so badly that you can never get out. After a month of abuse and conditioning by my 'master', I managed to impress her by managing to tame some of the more vicious beasts in her menagerie. Helped to have a fake arm and leg for them to gnaw on while I cuffed them about the head. After two months, she saw fit to give me a tiny, small boon, to reward me for all my hard work. I asked for one thing. Guess what it was."

Vinyl's eyes widened and she whistled. "A crystal."

I smiled and pulled from the bottle. Damn good stuff. "Exactly. The fae and their entire realm essentially are magic. The only thing that could come close is this world. It took me a bit to figure out the correct amount of power to zap it with, but when I did..."

I whistled and snapped with my left hand. "The slave turned the tables on the master. None of them could stand to be near me with it active, and I reclaimed all my belongings by my sheer 'screw your magic' field. However...they'd already done some...unspeakable things to me by then."

I touched my left forearm absently and shuddered. "Humans once practiced branding on animals to be able to tell apart which one belonged to which farmer. A cruel practice. The idea of flesh bubbling, melting, twisting, and then that image forever imprinted on the creature..."

Octavia asked the next bit in a barely-audible whisper. "They did that to you?"

I nodded once and traced the place where the old scar had been. "I will give them this: they knew how to make it look appealing after the fact. But that didn't help me at the time. The pain...it rivaled the time I lost my original limbs. Merely because of the fact that when you're branded by a Fae or their servants, they have a link to your soul. So long as the brand is there, they think of you as theirs. Once a world, I had to fight off something that tried to drag me back to Tir Nan Og, their home. Every time I Drifted, that gave them the ability to find where I was, where I was going, and send something after me that could hunt me down."

One bottle was down, and I pushed the other towards Vinyl. She sighed and took it in her magical grasp before beginning to tell me her tale of woe.

About how she'd just started out as a DJ in a small club when she was just barely a mare. About how a handsome pegasus had convinced her to try a drink. About salt's effect on ponies, and how she hadn't known any better.

About how that fucker had twisted her life, slowly but surely, to the point where she did what he wanted without hesitation. Where her only thought was making him happy so he would give her more salt. All the abuse he'd heaped on her, verbal, mental, and physical.

Octavia had found her one night, passed out in the street, and remembered her from the times they'd gone to school together. She'd recently attended a seminar at Canterlot's hospital about the effects of too much salt, how to recognize it, and how to help those suffering from it. The fact that it was a fillyhood friend only galvanized her all the more, and Vinyl woke up for the first time in months feeling warm, safe, cared for.

From there, it was a long process to rebuild the mare into someone that could look in the mirror and not flinch. There were close shaves, near misses. In the end, Octavia had to remove all salt from the house, first to make sure Vinyl stuck to the detoxification routine, and then to keep the bad memories away. Somewhere during that time of rebuilding Vinyl, an important step had been filing a restraining order. Octavia had been the one to get it, and it took Vinyl a week to work up the courage to sign it.

Once that was done, another month would pass before she could get comfortable with the idea of playing in public again. Octavia had been her test audience during this time, cheering her on despite having a love for the more classical pieces. On the night of her first performance, the two of them went to a club together, one to provide entertainment, the other to provide support.

Doing what she loved again had been the final step, and Vinyl was reborn. She cooked now to take up the time that salt had, because without a hobby or something to distract her besides her job, she was constantly afraid of her problem coming back to bother her again. Cloud Stuffer had been immediately added to the Barred list of any and every club she played at, and things had worked well, for a time.

Last night being the exception, of course.

I raised my empty bottle and pointed it to Vinyl, who mimicked me with a raised eyebrow. "To the two of us. Two scarred souls that carry on, despite what has happened, because we refuse to give in." I looked at Octavia for the next bit. "And to those that support us, because without it, we would probably fall back into our old ways."

Vinyl smiled and clinked her bottle with mine. "Hear, hear."

Comments

[doctor_n]

I don't know wether to be happy or sad... Though I think I'm supposed to be happy.

[ArcaneVisions]

Meh...hate his holier than thou additude in this chapter, shining armor is just doing his job.

[EonAon]

4866772 eh but NOBODY is happy when the cops come in the early morning

[musicluvr1974]

Bravo. I know now how hard it is to write one of these... thanks for giving us such a fun ride. Even without much of a clue as to what the Memverse is, I look forward to the "next stop," as it were.

[Jarimor]

well, that is an interesting take on coke/heroin. if i follow your analogy of 'salt' right.

[Thadius0]

4870437
Actually! A little salt isn't too bad. Inebriates / intoxicates a pony.
The amount Vinyl had forced on her on a semi-regular basis?
Good luck thinking...

[Tempest_Flare]

Tempered Works, the royal smith, and I have an understanding, once that supplies a rare metal that could have a variety of uses.

ONE not once!

P.S. sorry for the shout but i have a thing for misspelled numbers it's a OCD and VERY bad habit. don't comment like this often but that is one of the things that i can't stand so sorry i try to keep it in check most time please forgive a pony for her nitpicking.(if you want to of course)