9 : True Colors
After I had lost to Sunset, I woke up outside in an alley by knuckle brick corner. Nose dry from bleeding, body aching. When I sat upright, Vinyl against the wall next to me.
"Hey, champ," she said to me. I smiled at that name. Not once had I ever truly been the winner of a fight, yet she still called me that. I probably should've taken that to be more of an insult than a compliment. But for whatever reason, she called me that continually. I shrugged and rested my head on the wall. Hearing commotion at the front of the bar, I saw the other four with Soarin, talking and pointing in my general direction. Dash specifically was collecting bits as some of the regulars left for the night. Guess who she bet on winning?
"So, did you learn a valuable lesson today?" Vinyl asked me. I looked up at her, surprised.
"Never punch a ginger?" my brain failed me when I thought back to my fight.
"Your other lesson," Vinyl grinned. I tried to think, but still, nothing came to mind. "Come on, I thought you were the smart one!" she said.
"Sorry, I don't know what I was supposed to learn," I confessed.
"I'll give you a hint. It has to do with something you did tonight," she said. But I continued to draw blanks. Vinyl rolled her eyes. "Those things that Sunset said to you, were they true?"
Getting your horn working again is pointless... If you had any thoughts of making it as a decent fighter... Forget it. Those words alone felt worse than any punch. Especially since Sunset was right.
"Pretty much," I slumped, remembering that that wasn't all I was wrong about. Looking back to the others, I knew I hadn't really given a good effort to be friendly. And now that they knew I had tried to sell my spot on the team to leave, I doubted they would've wanted me back.
Vinyl glanced at me hitting my head against the wall, feeling rather dumb about myself. If I were her, I would've just left me there to sulk, but Vinyl was not that kind of pony. Or so I thought.
"Do you remember when we first met?" she asked me.
"When I was pulled down here by Dash? How could I forget?"
"Well, after we lost that match with Nightmare Moon; I was ready to leave there you on the floor. And forget that you had ever shown up. As far as I was concerned, you were a waste of my time, and a disgrace to all fighters, just like Nightmare said." Vinyl saying that shocked me.
There is no way she would do that to me, right? I thought. I really wanted to deny it, but the longer I looked into those cold, blood red eyes, the more I became convinced that she'd been lying to me all along. Just like you.
Fiona was silent. Looking away from me, solemn.
"That sounds like 'us'," she said. She seemed sadder now, convinced even, that we were speaking of the same pony with tinted sunglasses. Fiona took a deep breath and looked back at me. Ready to hear more. "Did you part ways when you learned that?" she asked. I only smiled at her as I continued my story.
"But those jerks didn't think it was right," Vinyl said, pouting, as if annoyed. But she grinned, looking down at me like an older sister would, proud of me.
"Them!?" I belted, puzzled as I pointed to the others. Vinyl nodded.
"Don't tell Dash I told you this, but she said that if I was going to ditch you then and there, she'd knock me out, take you, and leave me in your place. Saying I was more of flank-hole than she was. And for the first time in a long time, I got really, really, mad. But there really wasn't much I could do, as soon as Dash and the others started looking out for you, they began to skip out on training to make sure you didn't get mugged every day. That made me even angrier.
"My students were giving up on becoming stronger to help you. And whenever you decided to show up, I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to get you to run by training you myself; that didn't work. We had already come up with a plan to have Alex bring Trixie's lies to light, but AJ suggested that you had a better chance out of any of us to get in the ring and teach her not to cheat us. But I was the one who told her to take the title back from you once you did.
"And then there was your attitude, your bucking attitude," Vinyl shook her head abhorrently. "You hadn't caught on that they were the nice ones and that I was the jerk. You tried so hard to push them away from you that I decided to call in a favor."
"Sunset," I guessed. And I was right, as usual.
"I got ahold of her, saying that this know-it-all mare from Canterlot was in town and that you were the most pathetic fighter in existence; no offense."
"None, taken?" I said.
"She came without a second thought. I wanted her to break you mentally and physically. That way even if the others tried to convince you to stay, you'd just leave to who knows where. You'd just be out of my hair. But guess what you did? You fought back." I couldn't even put into words how I felt. I had the entire group backward. Vinyl wanted me gone more than anyone. And those last words, you fought back, left me feeling whole. That was what I learned. That was what Vinyl had taught me. How to have a fighting spirit.
"But you weren't the only one who learned something tonight," Vinyl continued. "You reminded me of somepony else who, like you, wanted nothing to do with fighting. Except, she ended up as one of the best.”
“What was her name?” I asked.
“Octavia Melody. Her fighter name is Regal, but I always called her Tavi. She was a great cello player. Well, still is, but I got involved with the wrong crowd when I first took up the DJ gig. Ended up learning how to fight, and Tavi, being the goody-two-shoes that she was, tried desperately to convince me to give up on those things and go back to playing the violin.”
“You played the violin?” I asked her with a laugh.
“Yeah, and I’m still damn good, you egghead!” she spat at me, I held back my laughter the best I could.
“So, you went back to Violin?”
“Nope, Tavi got into fighting," Vinyl started to laugh too. "She broke her own cello over the champion's head back home and proceeded to kick butt until the arena I worked at threw us both out."
"She sounds pretty amazing," I said.
"Oh yeah, and she was the hottest mare at our school! Maybe that was part of the reason I disliked her. No stallion wanted to date a dorky unicorn with glasses. So I got sunglasses and became edgy. Fighting wasn't even a pursuit back in those days." I was so amazed at how much mortality Vinyl was showing me. Up until then, I had always pegged her as a pony who could do no wrong, but even your heroes make mistakes, and that too inspired me. "But, back on topic," Vinyl continued, stepping away from the wall, "I'm sorry for treating you like dirt, and if you want to go back to Canterlot, I can hoof the bill. But if you'd rather stay here, I promise, I'll turn you into a fighter that everypony will recognize as one of the best."
Her proposal was tempting. On one hoof, I could finally return to Canterlot and heal my horn. But if I did that, I would completely lose the progress that I'd made in Ponyville. No matter what I did, I was going to have to pay a price for my choice. If I didn't leave, I'd be giving up on getting my old life back. But I'd already paid the price for that, so even if I would know what tomorrow would be like if I left, I felt like I was killing myself all over again if I did. A life as a fighter was going to be unpredictable. But who cared?
I took Vinyl's hoof. "Train me," I said, "and I promise I'll be the best." Vinyl smiled, lifting me up to my hooves as the others gathered around.
"Check this out, Twi!" Dash raised a heavy bag in the air, "Your fight with the Demon was worth four-hundred bits in gold, talk about entertaining!"
"Do I at least get a cut of that?" I asked, jokingly.
"Only if you bet that you'd lose."
"I did, actually," Dash's face went sour at that.
"Fine, I'll give you ten percent, but the rest of the proceeds go to charity."
"Really? How nice of you!" Rare commented.
"Yeah, it's called your cider bill from last nightmare night," Abby interjected and Dash hoofed over the large bag with a frown. Pinkie came up last as Soarin went to close up the bar. Even though I had decided to stay, it still wasn't easy for me to apologize for the way I had acted to them all. But Pinkie made it easy for me.
She stepped forward, head down, a tear or two fell from her face as she tried to smile, but a little bit of anger mixed with everything as she spoke, "Are you leaving?"
"No, I'm staying," I said. She looked up in surprise, resuming to cry, but this time, happily, as she hugged me. Trying to form words to say that I owed her a drink, snot, and tears streaming out her eyes and nose. I hugged her back, and I saw Soarin's head pop out from the bar's front door.
"Should I open it up again?" as if he needed to ask. He sighed and we followed him in. Vinyl put her hoof around me. It was there that she had considered me a friend, and it was the first time that I, had actually made a few.
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I like.
I like very much.
8339534
You have no idea how motivating it is to hear that. When hiatus is over, this story will be complete
Good story so far, keep up the good work
This story sounds very interesting. Is there a chance it will be completed?
8374136
Almost done with it, I plan on releasing the rest of the chapters once it's done.
I've got like... 8-ish chapters to go, and then it's revision and editing time.
The revision will go by quick enough, I just need to finish putting the chapters done on keyboard, and we should see it done in about two to three weeks. Hopefully two.
8374579 I am glad to hear that. The story looks interesting and when it is completed and I have finished the other readings I am scheduled to do I would like to do a youtube reading of this.
8375551
A youtube reading, really?
Didn't know that people did that kind a thing.
Well I'll try to make sure it's readable
8375737 Oh there are quite a few of us. Check out Creepypastasalad or Obadscribbler, they are both pretty good MLP Youtube Readers.
Please do take your time. Don't rush the story just for me to do a reading of it.
8376546
Will do
What can I say?
I had this one in the read it later, got bored and read it.
I love this story. Please tell me the hiatus won't last much longer.
8382486
Don't worry, we'll most likely be back next week
8382998
:D
wow, so vinyls entire justification for being a bitch is "we kidnapped and forced a untrained unprepared kid into the ring and ruined her future and because she wasn't some kinda master i wanted to fucking leave her" seriously are you trying to make these characters the reverse of endearing?
8409306
I don't remember her saying that.
Dash didn't get a fighter, so Vinyl basically said, "forget her, let's find another one. I'm not dealing with some Canterlot snob!"
They only needed a sixth pony to enter the tournament with them to make their team legal.
And it just happened to end really bad for Twilight. Vinyl had no control over her horn getting broken, and Celestia took what they said about Twilight partying in Ponyville the wrong way.
But yeah, Vinyl's a bitch. So? That's the point I had in writing this chapter, so she'd see the error of her ways.
Character development! Weeeeee!
stockholm syndrome, the story