Vinyl and Octavia Bust Out of Prison

by DoctorSpectrum

Chapter Two: A Deal with the Devil

“So…are we ready to start planning our escape yet?” asked Octavia.

“Octavia, if you could- I’m trying to think here,” said Vinyl, placing a hoof to her closed eyes. “This is going to require a lot of brainpower.”

Currently, the two mares were on the top deck of the Fort. The top deck was supposed to be used for exercise by those who earned it, but really, most ponies there just used it for what relaxation they could get.

Vinyl and Octavia had cells one deck below – what was referred to as the ‘safe zone’ by some of the ponies who had been shifted around a lot. The further down the ship you went, the less clean the cells were, and the higher security got. It used to be that the lower cells also had more lax security, due to the disgusting conditions and lack of care by the guards, but after some ponies had exploited this flaw to escape years ago, the security had been tightened. So far, Vinyl and Octavia had been on the Fort for one week, which as far as the two of them were concerned, was one week too long.

“I understand you need a lot of your brainpower for this, dear, but you’ve been saying that whenever I bring up the subject of escape,” Octavia said, her voice quiet so that any guards nearby couldn’t hear. “Do you have a plan?”

“Yes! Of course I do!” exclaimed Vinyl. “It’s just…still in the making. There are, y’know, obstacles to overcome, and variables to account for, and – and-”

Octavia shut up Vinyl by giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, which caused the unicorn to stop her stammering in surprise. “I can see that this is stressing you out, you know. If you feel that I’m pressuring you, you can just say.”

Vinyl sighed. “It’s not you that’s stressing me out – it’s myself.” At Octavia’s slightly confused look, she explained. “I just – I feel like I’ve got to do this right. And I mean, let’s face it, if we screw this up then we probably won’t get another chance any time soon, y’know?”

“So the importance of the task and the fact that you feel all of the pressure on you is making you stressed?” Octavia asked for confirmation. Vinyl nodded. “Well if it will help to take the pressure off, I’m more than happy to contribute what I can,” Octavia continued. Upon Vinyl hesitating, Octavia added, “I know that you’re reluctant for me to help – why is that?”

Vinyl fidgeted slightly. “Because, well – if I screw this up, the less you know the better. Makes you safer, you know what I mean?” As she spoke, she looked around the deck. There were still no ponies around them to overhear what they were talking about. Fear of some of the criminals kept on board the Fort had led to Vinyl and Octavia keeping to themselves for the duration of their stay – the last thing that they needed was to be dragged into some prison politics between the inmates.

Octavia nodded. “Well, that certainly makes sense, Vinyl, but what if I wish to help? What if I’m willing to take the risk and help you?”

Vinyl Scratch fidgeted again. She wanted to keep Octavia safe and protect her from the darker side of the prison. Hell, if she could, she’d teleport Octavia – and herself – out of the prison right this very second for Octavia’s sake. Could she survive in the prison for the duration of her sentence if she had to? Maybe, maybe not. Could Octavia? Almost certainly not. Vinyl had –very occasionally – met some ponies in clubs who had previously been in prison, and from what she had heard, it could get very nasty very quickly. All she wanted to do here was to protect Octavia, but the lack of knowing whether she could was slowly killing her.

Looking at Octavia, who was staring at her with a neutral look, waiting for a response, Vinyl couldn’t help but bite her lip as she agonised over the decision for another moment more. Then she made up her mind.

“Okay, but realise that if things go south, I probably won’t be able to protect you,” Vinyl said seriously. “Are you ready for this?” To Vinyl’s surprise, Octavia laughed.

“Vinyl Scratch, when did you become such a caution?” asked Octavia. “You’re the mare who tricked me into finding an ancient treasure in the Amarezon Jungle! You’re the mare who fought an evil male version of me who was the head of a ninja clan to set us free from their clutches! You even survived one of Natural Twenty’s roleplays, dammit!” Once more, the Earth pony laughed. “One of your plans, failing? I’d just as soon throw myself off this ship!”

In spite of herself, Vinyl couldn’t help but smile. Octavia obviously had faith in her, and over the past week, she had adjusted surprisingly well to the situation in comparison to how they had been their first night on the Fort. Grinning, she told Octavia what was on her mind.

“Okay then, here’s what we’ve got so far: the way I see it, there are three obstacles in the way of our escape. Firstly, there’s our cell door, which is tightly locked whenever we’re in there. The magical dampener in the cell prevents me from trying anything like lock-picking, and I know neither of us have nimble enough hooves to be able to try anything like that.”

“How do you know about the dexterity of our hooves, you brilliant mare?” asked Octavia, grinning as she put an arm around Vinyl’s body and gave it a small squeeze.

Vinyl smirked. “You know as well as I do, what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom. Anyway, the lock of the cell door probably has methods to prevent it being picked in the off chance that a pony with nimble enough hooves is imprisoned here, so it’s a moot point anyway.”

Octavia nodded, secretly disappointed that Vinyl had gotten back to business so quickly. “Getting out of our cell will be pretty hard,” she said, thinking as she spoke. What ways were there to unlock the cell doors?

Vinyl gave a short, shallow laugh. “They wish it was hard to get out of! The cell’s the easy part,” she said. A moment later, she looked around the deck to see whether anypony might have heard her slightly-too-loud exclamation. There were a group of convicts nearby who were probably in earshot, but they were talking amongst themselves. “I’ve got a way of getting out of our cell that they’ll never see coming,” she said to Octavia, stroking her chest fur proudly.

“Does it involve ‘wubs’ in any way?” Octavia asked, holding up her hooves to emphasise the word. “Because I’m fairly certain that every pony in Equestria will see it coming if it does.”

“Wubs may or may not be involved,” said Vinyl, grinning.

“An entire ship of nice cells with friendly killers to be put into, and they had to put me into the same one as a madpony,” said Octavia, trying to hide her smile. “Just my luck.”

“Bah, you’re just jealous that you don’t have my winning looks and sleek coat,” said Vinyl proudly, brushing some dust off her coat before putting her hoof down into a pile of something best left unmentioned. “Eww.”

“Right, so getting out of the cells is the easy part,” Octavia said, trying not to laugh as she watched Vinyl wipe her hoof on a clean part of the deck. “There’ll be guards on both our deck and this one, you realise?”

“Yeah, I’ve got that sorted,” Vinyl said, scowling as she realised that her hoof wasn’t going to get any more clean or dry at the moment. “I figure that when they come to investigate the cell, we knock out whichever guards arrive. Since they won’t activate an alarm, everypony will assume that everything’s good with our cell – for a little while.”

Octavia frowned. “Knock them out? With what?”

Vinyl shrugged. “We’ve fought ninjas, pirates, and robots and come out on top every time. I’m sure a bunch of prison guards are nothing next to them.”

“We’ve never fought robots,” Octavia pointed out.

“Well we should have, robots are cool,” Vinyl said. “Anyway, I figure that I can get us out of our cell, we can take care of the first few guards and then sneak past the rest – but beyond that I’m stuck. We need a way to disable the force field and then get off the ship alive.”

Octavia thought for a moment. “Well…” she said slowly, thinking it over, “there are essentially two ways off the Fort. Firstly, there’s the way we got here – a chariot pulled by pegasi. The force field would be disabled briefly then. Could we use that to escape somehow? Disguise ourselves as guards, or something?”

“Hmm…” Vinyl thought about it for a moment. “No,” she finally said, shaking her head. “I like the idea, and I want to use it, but it’s too risky. The second we get discovered, all bets are off.”

“Then that just leaves one option: to somehow disable the force field, jump off the top deck – after getting past the guards, naturally – and then get off the ship from there and somehow survive the fall,” Octavia commented. She shook her head. “No offence Vinyl, but that seems even more deadly than disguising ourselves as guards. I think we’ll have to find some way to get off the ship via chariot.”

“What, and get locked up in seclusion when our disguises are immediately seen through?” Vinyl asked. “The majority of guards here are male – we’d stick out like a moustache on a sea serpent.”

“Well how do you propose we survive a fall two thousand metres to the ground?” Octavia snapped. “For that matter, how do you propose we disable the force field so that we can jump to our deaths?”

“Maybe if you-”

“Someone needs the force field disabled?” a new voice interrupted. Vinyl flinched as she saw who it was – Blackheart Bertha, a gold-coated unicorn who, until a year or so ago, had been in charge of most of the Manehattan underworld. How exactly she had gotten the privilege of being allowed onto the top deck, Vinyl couldn’t guess.

Blackheart was accompanied by two other ponies who Vinyl assumed had been arrested with her gang when their leader was. With a jolt of realisation, Vinyl realised that these ponies had been the group she had noticed earlier – the group that she had noticed were in earshot but she had assumed were too busy talking.

“Mind your own business,” growled Octavia to the ponies. “This is a private conversation.”

“Not anymore, it’s not,” said Blackheart. Her voice was deceptively soft for such a cold-hearted pony – it was low and quiet. “While I’ve got my girls with me, I join whichever conversations I want.” The two ponies with her took a few steps around Vinyl and Octavia, enclosing them further.

“Well then, what if we were to take your girls out?” Octavia asked, just as quietly. The threat surprised Vinyl –since when was Octavia so aggressive?

“I’d like to see you try,” Blackheart challenged. There was a tense moment as the two ponies stared at each other, each waiting for the other to make the first move.

“Hey – cut that crap out, you two,” said Vinyl, waving a hoof in front of the two. “Octavia, we’re not going to beat up her guards. Blackheart, you can join our conversation if you really want to.”

“Why?” Octavia asked Vinyl, turning to the unicorn. “Do you really want her to hear what we’re talking about?”

“If she can help us, then yeah, I’m fine with it,” said Vinyl. “Right now, I’d do almost anything to get us off this ship.”

“So that’s what you’re planning? A prison break?” Blackheart asked.

“Yeah. Octavia and I don’t really like the sights around here, if you get what I mean,” Vinyl said, acting more confident than she felt in talking to the gang leader.

“And let me guess – you two need to disable the force field so that you can get off the ship?” Blackheart asked.

Octavia frowned. “That’s not guessing – you overheard us when you interrupted earlier.”

“Maybe,” said Vinyl. “What’s it to you?”

“I might be able to disable the force field for a few minutes,” answered Blackheart. “What’s it to you?”

“That might be useful to Octavia and I. What’s that to you?”

“I might want to get in on that usefulness since I’m the one disabling the force field. Maybe. What’s that to you?”

“I might want to think about this carefully. What’s that to –”

“Guys, can you stop will all of the implications and the double-talk?” interrupted one of Blackheart’s guards. Octavia nodded in agreement.

Blackheart rolled her eyes. “I want to get off this ship just as badly as you two. I’ve got some leniency in here thanks to some threats made to some guards’ families, but it’s not enough,” she said. “I want to be out there in Equestria, breaking skulls and stabbing goons again. I want to be back in a position where I can get away with anything, where I can be the kingpin of Manehattan again. You dig?”

“Lovely,” muttered Octavia.

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying. You disable the force field, in return we break you out with us,” Vinyl said.

“Precisely,” confirmed Blackheart. “I can get some guards to let me out of my cell – along with some of my girls – and then we can make our way to the force field control room. We can deal with the guards there and turn off the force field for a few minutes, but afterwards you’d better have a way to get us all off the Fort or you’ll regret it.”

Vinyl and Octavia looked at each other. Does she realise that we still don’t actually have a way to get off the Fort? Vinyl silently thought.

“So? Do we have a deal?” Blackheart asked. “I disable the force field, you get the five of us off this ship?”

“We’ll…think about it,” Vinyl said. Blackheart held out a hoof to shake which Vinyl reluctantly took.

“Sure. You’ll think about it,” Blackheart said. “Just make sure that you make the right choice regarding my offer, you hear? Because it isn’t exactly the type of offer you can refuse.”

“Of course,” said Vinyl, feeling her heart sink. She stared Blackheart in the eye, refusing to back down, but she knew that she was feigning the confidence she displayed.

With that, Blackheart left, along with her guards. Octavia looked at Vinyl.

“Well, what now?” she asked.

Vinyl groaned. “Bloody hell, I have no idea,” she said, running a hoof through her mane in stress. “We go along with her plan, we end up letting one of Equestria’s most notorious crime bosses out. We don’t, we probably won’t get off the ship, and she’ll probably have us killed for daring to refuse her offer and planning to leave without her.”

Octavia winced. “Yes, that’s quite a nasty dilemma.” She nuzzled closer to Vinyl in an attempt to comfort her. “But still, we haven’t quite worked out how to get off the ship. Maybe one of us will work out a way to get off the ship which we won’t need Blackheart’s hope for.”

“Yeah,” said Vinyl, worry apparent in her voice, “maybe…”

===============================

“Vinyl – no! We have to find another way!”

“I’m telling you Octavia, there’s no other way! We’ve been over this a million times since I first suggested it – you know as well as I do that there’s no other way off the ship!” It was three nights since Blackheart Bertha had approached Vinyl and Octavia, and the two ponies were currently arguing in their cell.
“But what if we haven’t considered someth-”

“Stop saying that!” Vinyl interrupted. “We’ve been over this. We’ve studied the ship. There’s only one way off the ship, and we’ll need Blackheart’s help to disable the force field if we’re going to do it. We’re not sure whether we can disable the force field and then get off in the time before it’s reactivated, and the risk isn’t worth it.”

“I – I know, but-” Octavia sighed. “Isn’t it selfish? Letting a criminal like Blackheart out of prison for our own safety?”

Vinyl paused. The thought had been on the back of her mind for a while, and so far she wasn’t sure that she could justify it.

“Well?” Octavia asked. She waited for an answer for Vinyl. And waited further. Finally, it dawned on her – Vinyl wasn’t going to give a response.

“My god,” said Octavia. “We’re monsters. How did it come to this?”

Vinyl sighed. “If I say that I’ll find some way to stop Blackheart, will that help?”

“It – I trust you to, Vinyl.” Octavia gave Vinyl a small kiss on the lips. “If you say that you can find a way to stop Blackheart, I’ll trust you to.”

“Thanks, Octavia,” said Vinyl, feeling slightly better about the whole matter. “Now, let’s get out there and tell Blackheart that we’ll accept her offer.”

“…It’s the middle of the night, Vinyl, and we’re locked in our cell right now.” said Octavia. “How are you planning on getting out to see Blackheart?”

“With wubs?” suggested Vinyl.

Octavia grinned. “I love you.”

===============================

“So, we have a deal?” Blackheart asked. It was the next day, and Vinyl and Octavia were meeting with the golden unicorn on the top deck.

Vinyl hesitated. Although she had said to Octavia that she’d find a way to stop Blackheart from escaping, she wasn’t sure that she could. Was this really the right thing to do?

“Sure,” Vinyl said, shaking Blackheart’s hoof. “We’ve got a deal.”

Comments

[Spirit Shift]

“

Wubs may or may not be involved,” said Vinyl,
grinning.

It'd better be. I can't remember the last time wubs were involved in one of your stories