• Published 31st Jul 2018
  • 3,949 Views, 230 Comments

Spare Some Change? - Nadir



A down on her luck Vinyl gets help from unexpected sources.

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A Hint of Hope

Octavia had never been in a fight. In school, she’d behaved perfectly, gotten good grades and moved on with her life. There had been a few scraps around the playground, but Octavia stayed very far away from every single one of them. As an adult, the worst ‘fight’ she’d ever gotten in was yelling at one of her orchestra members after a particularly unfortunate performance. Could anyone truly be surprised that she froze up?

In the hail of gunfire and screams that followed, Octavia froze up. But only for a second, only for a little while before one feeling took control of her more than anything. Vinyl. Octavia scurried out of the shield, ducking under Shining Armor himself and bolting towards the door. But, not the door to the exit, no, Octavia ran towards the door leading into the warehouse.

In the chaos, no pony thought to stop her. The mare swung at her, but swore and darted back behind the desk as the royal guards returned fire. Octavia heard a scream but didn’t stick around to see who had taken the shot. Inside, chaos still took over. It’d been a joint assault, with pegasi breaking through the windows in the warehouse floor and unicorns teleporting in. Even at the best of times, the place seemed particularly labyrinth - shipping containers taking up the largest portions of the room, with pallets full of things she couldn’t identify in others.

Some of the containers were already open, worker ponies coming out, just as armed as the ones in front. Two turned towards Octavia as she surveyed the place, one of them screamed and lifted up a gun towards her.

Octavia had already grown tired of having guns pointed at her head. Without thinking, she darted to the right, running as fast as she could just as a salvo of bullets punctured the wall behind her. On one side, the wall stayed strong, a door darted every now and then, on the other, the shipping containers with small breaks in between to form alleys. She’d look between each of them as she ran, fighting filling the corridors with a mess of hoof to hoof and entrenched mafia ponies fighting royal guards in their gleaming gold armor.

Thoughts filled her head - where would they be keeping her love? Where would she be hidden? She didn’t get to think too much due to a bullet firing right over her shoulder, whizzing so close to her ear that she could feel the air and hear the zwip! sound.

Keep moving. Octavia barreled through a door to her right, slamming it shut and locking it behind her as fast as her shaking hooves could manage it. Only then did she turn to look at what actually greeted her - a staircase? It went down, that meant… a basement?

Shouts echoed through the door, and a bang shook it - they were following her, they had her trapped and she could only go one way: deeper into the belly of the beast.

Octavia descended down the stairs as fast as she could, nearly tripping over herself, hooves clacking against the brutish metal. Down here, things were quieter, the gunshots and screams of the floor above didn’t quite permeate it perfectly. Down here, the lights weren’t so bright. Actually, they were quite dark. It was a hallway of some sort, with doors evenly spaced along the sides, a tube light flickering above and casting shadows that looked like they’d come straight out of a horror movie. A chill went up Octavia’s spine, and then another as she realized she could hear… crying? Yes, that was definitely crying.

The pony felt paralyzed now, stuck to the spot with hooves rooted to the ground. Above her, she could still hear the banging against the door, but for now, somehow, it managed to stay whole. A little bit of peace amongst the creepiest spot she’d ever been in her life.

With a swallow, Octavia managed to step forward, the memory of her Vinyl rousing her to action. And really, where else would her love be but somewhere like this? With a trembling hoof, she stepped to open the first door on her left, pushing it open to reveal - nothing. To be fair, some things did occupy the room - chains on the wall, a messy blanket on the floor. Wait, was that blo-. Oh. Bloody blankets on the floor, shackles on the wall…

Octavia knew what that meant. A sense of revulsion swam through her and for a second, just a second, she thought that she’d vomit. Octavia braced herself against the wall, legs feeling weak, mind spinning with possibilities, with all the different things that could have gone wrong. There could have been kids here, Vinyl could have-

Vinyl. The intelligence said that she still remained on the premises, so that meant she had to be down here. Anywhere else wouldn’t make sense, and the thought alone brought a new sense of urgency back to her.

Out she surged, going for the door directly across and kicking it open as well. Empty, just like the one before it. She kept moving, kept her hooves going because every second mattered. The banging above her had stopped but was that because they’d been taken out or because they’d gotten through? Who had won?

Another door, another empty- no, not empty. A pony curled up in the corner, but it wasn’t Vinyl. It was a pink coated stallion, asleep on the floor so deeply that not even the gunfight above could wake him. That had a host of other consequences that Vinyl didn’t want to think about right now, and though pity stung her heart, she couldn’t stop and get him free, not when she had so many things to take care of.

There were only four doors left. Four down, four to go, halfway done and still no Vinyl. One more, this had to be it, this had to be the one.

She kicked it in. There was a pony in this one, in the low light, Octavia could barely see, but she didn’t need to see to know who it was, her heart told her the truth. Vinyl, right in front of her, Vinyl, chained to the wall with thick bandages around her neck. Her Vinyl, broken, downcast, bruised, even her horn had been shattered to stop her from doing magic, the only way that she would have been able to get out.

Octavia’s heart broke and she wanted to scream and cry both at the same time. Her love, her girlfriend looked up from the sound of the door opening, already starting to speak. “I told you I won’t fuckin- Octavia?” she blurted out that last word, so surprised, so shocked that anything that came before simply didn’t matter. But instead of joy, despair, fear showed on her face. “No, no, no, you can’t be here! You have to go!” That spurred her to life, the pony pulling against her chains, letting them jingle against each other as she tried to move forward - she couldn’t get very far. “They didn’t get you, did they? Octavia, please, run, these people are crazy!”

But Octavia wouldn’t run, she couldn’t run. She couldn’t even say a word, much less speak. Instead, she closed the distance between them herself, wrapping her forelegs around the other girl, hugging her as tightly as she could without hurting the poor thing, putting all the love, all the care she had into it. Both of their bodies shook, Octavia’s from relief and sadness, and Vinyl from fear and terror in equal margins. “They didn’t get me,” she whispered, nuzzling close to Vinyl’s ear. “They didn’t find me. I came to get you, I have the royal guard with me, they’re upstairs taking care of this, okay? You’re going to come home. You’re going to come with me and we’re going to be happy again, alright?” she asked, her voice trembling from the pure emotion in it.

Vinyl hugged her back. There were chains involved closing around Octavia’s neck, but she didn’t care, not when she actually had the chance to touch her love, to be close to her again for the first time in what felt like eternity. A few tears ran down Octavia’s cheeks, disappearing into Vinyl’s fur, overwhelmed, simply unable to process all of the emotions.

“Will I be okay? Octavia, I don’t think I can use magic anymore,” Vinyl whimpered out, the broken pieces of her horn still on the ground beside them, white bits that looked like stone but were something much, much more horrifying.

Octavia nodded even as she squeezed all the tighter. “Of course, hun. I’ve been talking to the Princess herself, Twilight will be able to help you, she has to,” she assured her, patting Vinyl’s back with a free hoof, rubbing against it and giving her all the pets, all the affection she could ever want.

“Octavia, wai-” She didn’t finish her words. Behind her, a sound broke out that Octavia only recently learned - the sound of a gun cocking.

With a feeling of true terror and a chill going down her spine, Octavia slowly released Vinyl and turned, only to see the same mare from earlier, the same bitch who kept following her, covered in blood and leveling a gun at her once more.

“You just couldn’t give up, could you?” she sneered, stalking forward like a mare possessed. She didn’t have her lackeys this time, didn’t have someone to back her up, but she didn’t need it, not with that gun waving in front of her. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone and now look what you’ve done. This will be war, you know.” Her teeth showed behind pulled back lips, the usually white, ivory things covered in a thin sheen of blood, Octavia could only hope it was hers. “An all out war between the organized crime syndicates and the royal guard, and two little fuckwit mares will be the start of it all, how...stupid.” The mare laughed, a cackling, echoing laugh, and only then did Octavia realize she’d forgotten her name entirely.

It was a strange thought to have. Who cared about somepony’s name when a gun pointed at your head? Who thought of anything but that and the way the thing moved like a corpse held together by strings? But it seemed important for some reason, and Octavia didn’t really know why. Not even the barrel quite literally pressing against her head could really change that simple fact.

“So now I’m going to kill you and I am going to enjoy it. I’m going to have so much fun doing it, I’m going to have so much satisfaction watching you feel Celestia’s mercy that you so clearly want,” she ranted, practically raving on the bit. Octavia swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, all her clever words, her thoughts and feelings disappearing from her mind.

But not from Vinyl’s. The hurt, the injured mare stepped forward, putting herself in front of the mare instead of Octavia. “Come on,” she started, eyes a little hazy and blood starting to leak out from behind the bandages once more. “You wanna get out of this don’t you?” Octavia hadn’t realized just how raspy Vinyl’s voice was till now, she could barely make out the pony she loved so much. A second ago simple love, simple feeling had washed all that away, but in this moment of desperation, everything seemed so much more vivid.

Octavia could latch onto that thread. “Yes, yes. The guards would let you go if you had us. You don’t have to do this, we can make this work out peacefully.”

At least the mare seemed to consider it, chin lifting up slightly and looking over the two with a more appraising look, careful and scrutinous. To Octavia, it felt like a butcher looking over a piece of meat, and she couldn’t help but shudder.

“How many hostages do you need? One.”