Temposhark
Party Insurance was a term created specifically for instances where Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch would get together and host an event. A night of beats, partying and lots and lots of dancing was one to remember, but unfortunately it was not always in a positive manner. Said events almost always turn out in disaster, so much so that an entire new form of insurance had to be created, one with an incredibly niche, but at the same time practical, use.
Pinkie Pie and Vinyl Scratch’s battle to the death days ago met all the criteria to file a claim for such insurance. Property destruction occurring during a party? Check. Pinkie Pie and/or Vinyl Scratch involved? Double check. Cause of property damage so indeterminate one could say a hurricane did it and nopony would bat an eye? Given the fact the club had been destroyed by weaponized sound waves, that was one large check. So in terms of having her club being destroyed by the power of her own Stand, Vinyl had nothing to worry about as it would be mostly covered by her extensive party insurance.
That didn’t stop Vinyl from still being bummed that she didn’t have a club to go to during the day and night anymore. Being out of the job wasn’t the problem; she had plenty of money stocked up for the occasions where her club was literally brought down and out of business for a few days. Yeah, Vinyl essentially had her second home there, but it wasn’t something she couldn’t live without for a few weeks. The problem lay in the cause of the entire situation to begin with: that she had finally been given what she had been longing for all her life, but wasn’t allowed to use it like she wanted.
Princess Twilight Sparkle wanting to take away Bangarang was indeed a false memory planted into Vinyl’s head just to get her to turn hostile towards said princess and her friends. Princess Twilight had confirmed that when Vinyl asked her; Aloe had related to her that the stallion, Crimson Spirit, had been captured. But the Princess warned against using Bangarang in public for a while. It would shock too many ponies, draw questions that she couldn’t answer, and just generally make ponies feel uncomfortable.
Even though Vinyl understood why, it didn’t make it any easier on her. To be able to speak after a lifetime of not being able to was an incredible gift. It was probably the only good thing that came out of Crimson’s stay Ponyville in her eyes. Yet as much as she hated having to remain silent, ultimately Vinyl had to agree with the Princess. The awkward and slightly creeped out looks she was getting from her roommate were bad enough. Right now, she couldn’t take any more of that. Princess Twilight said she’d get into contact with a few upscale doctors in Canterlot and help fabricate a story that Vinyl had managed to get experimental magical surgery to fix her voice, but until that happened, the silent Vinyl would still remain.
Agreeing was only one part, however, especially as she longed to at least be able to talk to the regular Ponyville doctor who was doing her evaluation to see whether or not she could take her cast off. Instead, Vinyl was forced to use her magic to write everything she felt on the notepad laid in front of her. It dawned on her rather quickly how patient ponies had been with her signing or writing things, since right now she felt the full annoyance of it reflected back on her.
Pinkie Pie had still done a number on her body when she attacked her with Ta-Dah. It wasn’t something that she held against the mare; neither of them knew anything about Stands at that point, and they were both in a fight to the death. Pinkie had been rather generous too with the apology cakes and pastries, even offering Vinyl something involving free cakes for life. Still, it sucked having to use only one hand on top of being mute. She was more than happy to have this all off soon enough, if the doctor would hurry it up.
For the most part, the examination went smoothly and was more tedious than anything else. A lot of answering questions by writing things down, shaking her head, and trying not to roll her eyes and how long it seemed to be taking. The only real thing of note was that there was a doctor Vinyl had never seen before doing checkup, though that doctor explained that that he was from out of town and just starting out. Cousin of Redheart or something. She was starting to nod off anyways.
‘Uh, doc?’ Vinyl had her pencil write down the two words quickly, feeling that she’d done her deep breaths and yet he hadn’t pulled away the stethoscope from her chest yet. She took another deep breath to see if that was what he wanted, only to realize that the doctor wasn’t even looking at the paper and pad anymore. So instead, she used the pencil to tap him on the head in order to try and get his attention.
“Ah, sorry, I was having trouble there for a second. Alright,” The doctor announced once he finally finished finished listening to her heartbeat. He quickly picked up a clipboard. “Well, it’s been awhile, and you said you didn’t have any pain or discomfort in it anymore. I’d say your cast is ready to be removed. Your bones should have healed up perfectly. I don’t know what you were doing to cause such injury to yourself, as well as your establishment, but as a doctor I recommend you don’t go doing that again in the future.”
Vinyl merely responded with a grin, a shrug, and a thumbs up with her good arm. There wasn’t really much of a reaction from the doctor. She had hoped he would have at least roll his eyes or looked at her with disappointed, give her some sense of satisfaction. But no, he simply looked at her stoically before beginning to unwrap her arm.
The splint was soon out, and once her arm was finally free of its sling, Vinyl gave it a couple flexs as if testing to make sure it still worked. Once that was done, she made her way out to the outpatient desk. After signing a few papers, she was cleared to go. She simply waved goodbye to him in order to keep up the status quo of her not being able to talk.
Once Vinyl was outside, the first thing she did was reach down to grab her trademarked dark blue headphones. Trying to put these on with one hand had been annoying, but now with two they slid on without her having to awkwardly crane her head to slide them into place. The sunlight shone down on the screen of her MP3 player for a brief moment, but even better was now the fact she could use her hand to shade it. Already she was happy to be out of that cast.
For a short period after leaving the doctor’s office, Vinyl pondered on what she should do with the rest of her day without her club to party at. She could probably see what Neon was up to, or maybe she’d swing down to Pinkie Pie and see if she was planning anything. Though these thoughts weren’t for very long, since she soon heard her roommate’s voice in her head. The refined and shrill voice reminded her specifically of what she should do after she got done with her doctor’s appointment: go into the Market Square.
Tonight was spaghetti night. It wasn’t Vinyl’s favorite thing in the world to eat, but it served well enough as a good meal. Though while getting groceries the previous week, Vinyl had forgotten about the meal. If it were up to her, she would have just shrugged it off and ordered take out. But the thing about Octavia was that she was very particular about her regular events. Schedules and routines were a big deal to her, and she could not be dissuaded to break them easily. So she was making Vinyl rectify her mistake by picking up the ingredients she forgot in the market.
It wasn’t too long of a walk, and having her music in made it feel like even less so. Her bobbing head and timed steps were nothing out of the ordinary for Vinyl, and in fact many ponies would think would be odd to see Vinyl moving like that. If there was one place one could find Vinyl outside of her club, after all, it would be hiding in her headphones.
Once she arrived, Vinyl got to work. The Market was busy as it always was, filled with ponies looking around for things. A few ponies waved hi to her, an action which she reciprocated with a grin and wave on her own. She grabbed a bag from the entrance, compiling her list she needed to get done in her head.
First on her list was the pasta itself. This was the most important part. To Vinyl it was the only part, much to Tavi’s annoyance. In a move that would no doubt be doubly to her annoyance, Vinyl also went out of her way to find the pasta that was in the shape bow-ties. Vinyl didn’t care what Tavi said, they tasted better!
With the superior pasta crossed off her list, Vinyl made her way to her next, and only other destination. Spaghetti was an incredibly simple dish to make. You just needed the pasta, and the sauce. Well, so one would think normally. She’d tried to do that before, and while she thought it’d tasted fine, Tavi hadn’t been as forgiving with her meal. It was an incredibly simple dish, but it required her getting a few more veggies before she could call it complete. She’d actually remembered the celery from the last time she went to market, but she needed the onions and basil to help complete the dish. Or was it also cheese? Well she’d just also buy more cheese. You could never have enough cheese. Meaning that she actually had another stall to visit after the one she was currently making her way towards. A stall belong to one Golden Harvest.
Harvest’s stall was currently occupied by a single mare browsing the flowers. While she didn’t have as wide a selection as stalls that specialized in flowers specifically, there was still a certain charm her’s had. Perhaps it was the fact that they were grown with the same love and care as the vegetables that she specialized in. Or perhaps it was the familiarity Vinyl had with the little cart. Either way, it was one she found herself drawn to no matter where she was in the market.
Whatever her reason was for making Golden Harvest’s stall her choice shop for filling her floral needs, the mare served as an obstruction of sorts to Vinyl. She couldn’t use her voice to talk to ponies because they didn’t know about Bangarang, and would come to Twilight asking for her miracle magic that doesn’t exist. However, Golden Harvest herself was Stand User, and knew exactly where her voice came from.
This is why Vinyl lingered a few feet away from the stall, idly browsing while she waited for the stall to be free of customers. As soon as it was, Vinyl plugged Bangarang into herself, and approached the stall, eager to use her gift of speech on somepony she could.
“Hey! Goldie!” Vinyl leaned forward, dropping her forearms onto the stall and grinning at her, “What’s up?”
“Vinyl!” Harvest beamed back at her, stand up straight from being hunched over with a large basket in hand, “Good to see you! How are you doing?”
“Eh, you know, getting groceries and stuff. Kinda boring but Tavi wants them,” She yawned, “What about you, how’s everything going since you got the extra help?”
“Extra help…? Oh!” Harvest chuckled and quickly turned her head, “You mean Mr. Sandman! Everything’s been going alright honestly. I’ve actually been doing half the work now that I have him. I got him doing the gardening for me while I’m here selling! I’ve been selling more than ever since I don’t have to take days off now to go and harvest the plants.”
“That’s great,” Vinyl’s grin turned into a smile, “At least you’re getting some use out of yours right now. It sounds pretty sweet, getting it to do all the stuff you don’t wanna.”
“Oh yes,” Golden raised a finger and made her way around the stall, replacing one of the large woven baskets in a little metal stand with the one she was holding, “I got it gardening, cleaning, I even got him to wrap flowers! Pretty much anything I write down he’ll do, as long as I’m really clear about it. It’s like my own personal assistant.”
“Awesome,” Vinyl reached down and took one of the flowers from the basket Harvest had just replaced, “These look pretty good. Mind if I buy some? I need some veggies too.”
“Not at all!” Harvest moved back behind her stall quickly, “Mind if I ask who their for?”
“The house,” Vinyl picked out a small bouquet and set it down on the stall, “The ones I have in the kitchen are starting to die, figured if I replaced them now then I won’t have to later on. As for the veggies, forgot ‘em last week.” She tossed up a few celery stalks, tomatoes and a few other things to punctuate her sentence.
“Well that’s very thoughtful of you. I’m sure Octavia will appreciate it,” Golden reached down and counted the number of flowers, then smiled, “That’ll be thirty bits.”
“Thirty?!” Vinyl gasped, “That’s… what?!” She put a hand on her chest, then broke down into snickers, “I’m just joking with you, here,” She tossed thirty bits down onto the stall, “Thanks, Goldie.”
Harvest’s previously widened eyes slowly rolled, “No problem, Vinyl. Just let me know if you need anything else!”
“Can do!” Vinyl made an L with her fingers and pointed it towards Harvest, her other hand moving to her neck and disconnecting Bangarang’s jack from her vocal chords. She waved the small stall off as she turned her back to it.
After Vinyl let, Golden swore she saw something. Something small just on the edge of the other side of the market. It was a blurry gray mass, one that had just moved in her field of view. She raised an eyebrow and reached up to rub her eyes. Once she blinked away the fuzziness in her vision, she looked again. Nothing was there.
Vinyl looked through the basket strapped around her arm and went down her mental shopping list. The tomatoes were there. She could never remember how many Octavia needed to make the dish, so she got a few more than she thought the list stated, just to be on the safe side. Two onions should have been more than enough. A small bag of basil sat on top, as not to get crushed by the slightly more heavier vegetables. That should have been everything.
But then the question of cheese came back up again. One thing that both Vinyl and her roommate could agree upon was that cheese made spaghetti all the better. But if they had enough at home was the question that was on her mind. She didn’t want to go home only to realize they didn’t. But she also didn’t want to waste bits buying cheese she didn’t need.
While she groaned and was unsure of what to do in this situation, Vinyl caught sight of some strange movement in the distance. It was the gray blur once again. It couldn’t have been just part of the crowds of ponies hustling and bustling through the market, because it was so low to the ground. This odd motion distracted Vinyl from her cheese pondering as she tried to figure out what she was looking at.
It was hard to tell, at first, since it was so far away. Though that was changing at a steady pace. Whatever it was, it was approaching Vinyl. When she squinted her eyes, she realized that it looked almost to be lodged in the ground. Vinyl’s first guess was that it was some sort of small creature, such as a rabbit or mouse. Hopefully it wasn’t a mouse, since there were certain ponies that would be terrified of something like that.
But as it got even closer, it appeared that wasn’t the case. The main road the market was set up on was perhaps fifteen feet in width, and extended right by the center of town. It was on the other side of the road as Vinyl, and far up the road as well. So it wasn’t until it was perhaps only ten feet away from her that she managed to finally get the object to come into focus.
This thing had a humanoid form. At least, it had the one from the waist up. When the distance between it and Vinyl closed even more, she could see that this was because its other half was below the ground. But it wasn’t leaving a trail of parting ground behind it. The only disturbances in the ground were small ripples in the otherwise solid surface around it. After a few seconds, those ripples would vanish and the ground would return to normal.
This small humanoid creature appeared to be swimming through the ground as if it were liquid. On top of that, it was swimming incredibly poorly. Not with the skills of somepony who didn’t know how to swim at all and resorted to doggy paddling. The manner in which this strange thing was swimming through the ground was as if somepony had seen a professional swimmer once, a very long time ago, and was trying to mimic their movements from memory. A such, its arm movements were heavily exaggerated, almost to the point of being comical.
The only reason that Vinyl wasn’t laughing at the moment was because she was more confused that amused by this thing. Even more confusing was the fact that she seemed to be the only pony able to see it. Nopony else in the whole market place was paying this small oddity that should have been the center of everypony’s attention any mind. It was swimming right by their legs, and yet nopony was noticing a creature so clearly visible. It was almost like they couldn’t even perceive it in the first place.
Vinyl realized what this meant far too late.
When it was close enough to her, the Stand sprang up from the ground on a trajectory course straight for Vinyl. When it made contact with her body, just like with the ground, it began to swim through her as if she was just a liquid to it. Vinyl watched as her clothes and skin were rippled about, yet she felt only a strange phantom sensation from it. The Stand swam up Vinyl’s body as she stood there, still in shock from trying to process what was happening. By the time she regained her senses, the Stand had made it up to her chest. It reared its head back and then dove beneath her skin. Instantly, Vinyl felt it take a hold of her heart in squeeze.
The response to this was near instantaneous, and lasted only a second. The second its user felt the attacking Stand take hold of her heart, she forced Bangarang to appear and snatch the MP3 player from her pocket. Bangarang shot it’s chord directly into it, and at the very same second hit the first track it could put its fingers on. The song was selected at max volume. Wasting not another fraction of a second, Bangarang put its hands on Vinyl’s body and shot as much throbbing music through her as it could.
Thankfully, Bangarang had been able to achieve the result that its user was hoping to with this. In addition to being loud enough to cause everypony in the marketplace to turn to her way, the music shook Vinyl’s body to its core. The sudden introduction of intense vibrations caused her would be assassin to lose grip of her heart and be violently ejected from her body.
An unfortunate side effect was that Vinyl herself was knocked off balance by the music. In the moment of shock this brough, she lost the concentration it took to keep Bangarang manifested. This was extremely unfortunate because Vinyl’s MP3 player was still in its hands. With nothing to hold anymore, the device was caught by the still vibrating sound waves and shot through the air. It hit the ground, shattering into multiple fragments of metal, plastic, glass, and electronic parts.
Vinyl stumbled backwards until she hit a large stall behind her. The pony running it was ducked beneath it and covering his ears. Vinyl screwed her eyes shut and concentrated hard on the ringing in her head. Deep breaths brought it slowly down from a deafening roar to a manageable loud buzz. Her fingers gripped the stall as she pulled her eyelids open. They landed on the shattered MP3 player all the way across the road.
It was not the fact that she had just lost an MP3 player that worried Vinyl; she had plenty more of those laying around in her room. Losing those things was surprisingly common when one worked in a club. It was the fact that the MP3 player had served as her only weapon that made this situation so much worse now. Even with her body still recovering, she knew she was bucked. Without it, she had no source of vibrations for Bangarang to amplify immediately on hand to defend herself with now!
Vinyl saw the motion out of the corner of her eye once more. Whatever the thing was, it had landed right in the middle of a fruit basket upside-down. It rolled itself over like a bug, its legs sliding back into the solid matter under it. Now Vinyl could see it starting to swim once more. Yet as she stared at it, she swore it wasn’t swimming at its original speed.
By now, everypony who Vinyl had originally captured the attention of with her stunt of self-defense had turned their heads back towards whatever their original orientation was. They had all just dismissed whatever had happened as something that was normal for Vinyl. Loud bursts of music followed by somepony being knocked off of their feet was practically expected from her by this point. While they couldn’t have possibly offered her any help in this situation anyway, that didn’t stop Vinyl from feeling somewhat betrayed while she scrambled to her feet and started running away from her swimming assassin.
As Vinyl ran away through the crowd, she tried her best to mentally assess the situation she was in. It wasn’t possible for something to swim up her body like that, and nopony else was reacting to it. This could mean only one thing: a Stand was currently trying to kill her. It could swim through anything like liquid, be it solid stone, dirt, basket or even ponies. It seemed to be trying to dive into her body and squeeze her heart. That was what was going to happen if she let it reach her. So right now she had one goal: prevent the Stand from reaching her and giving her a figurative heart attack.
Vinyl shot her head behind her. Running headlong through a semi-crowded lot of ponies wasn’t the most effective place to run through, but given how slow it had been swimming earlier, she should’ve outran it by now. The more distance she put between it and her heart, the more her chances of survival increased. So when she instead saw it somehow matching pace with her, Vinyl’s body felt like locking up.
Thus, Vinyl continued to run. The next problem Vinyl found herself facing was how exactly was she going to accomplish getting away form this Stand. Without any vibrations to amplify, Bangarang was only just as strong as she was, maybe a little more. Just testing out its strength at the local gym had taught her that. Against a Stand like this, however, she might as well have been fighting with an unloaded gun. The brashest solution of just punching it as hard as she could crossed her mind. But that was quickly pushed out when she realized it would probably just swim through Bangarang’s fist. Vinyl needed to fight this Stand without touching it. She’d have to use Bangarang’s vibration-enhancement, but she didn’t have any vibrations to use!
Vinyl shot out of the Market Square with a heave. Her chest felt like it was on fire, and her now cast-less arm felt sore from being pumped so hard. She skidded to a halt, trying to catch her breath in massive gulps. After a few seconds, she turned her head around to see the progress of the Stand.
Somehow, the Stand had made massive gains on her, for she saw it emerge from the crowd the second she turned her head. It swam fast, the ripples it was producing increasing as it had now gone from a clumsy breaststroke to a powerful front crawl. When it got close enough, it leapt through the air once again towards Vinyl.
In a panic, Vinyl reach into her basket and threw the first thing she felt at it: an onion. When it collided with the vegetables, the Stand ended up diving into all of its layers. As a consequence, it was dragged along with the onion as it arched past a group of confused ponies.
The adrenaline Vinyl was feeling skyrocketed as the Stand suffered a momentary setback. A setback that Vinyl would most certainly capitalize on. She immediately took a sharp turn around a corner. Then she ran down a narrow alleyway between two buildings. When she was coming up on a fence at the end of the alleyway, Vinyl did not halt. Instead she manifested Bangarang right in front of her with its hands on the ground. As soon as she stepped on them, her Stand vaulted Vinyl over the fence. She kept running past two more buildings before finally running behind a dumpster in another alleyway, crouching behind it and catching her breath again.
Vinyl put her hand over her heart and felt it race. She could practically feel it thumping against her chest at this point. This was the first time that her life had ever been directly threatened. She had to say that she wasn’t a big fan of it. She didn’t know how Twilight and her friends kept dealing with this on a near daily basis. But for now at least, she appeared to be…
“What the?! No! Why?!” It was the slick, gooey noise above her that alerted Vinyl. She looked above her head and saw that the Stand had already found her. It was currently forcing its way through the wall. Vinyl barely had time to get up and move out of the way before it dove down at her. The Stand wasted no time at all the moment it hit the ground, swimming at her at an even faster pace than before.
This thing was swimming way faster than it was the last time Vinyl saw it. It would be a mere two seconds before it caught her. In those two seconds, a question formed in Vinyl’s mind: Why did it swim this fast before? After those two seconds, the Stand leapt once again at Vinyl in the exact same way it did the previous two times. Without even looking back, Vinyl manifested Bangarang in its path, causing it to dive into her own Stands’ body. She immediately withdrew it at soon as she felt the Stand enter it. The enemy Stand’s momentum was cancelled as it fell to the ground, buying her an additional second. Though with how fast it currently was, that second would be made up for as soon as it started swimming again.
Something had to have changed to prompt this Stand’s sudden boost in speed. Something that was that had changed in the span of less than two minutes. If that thing could have swum that fast from the start, it would have. She needed time to process what was going on to make her suddenly start losing to this thing!
The time it took Vinyl to think of that burned through the time she’d saved by her quick thinking. Now it was swimming right towards her foot and ready to swim up through her body again. Despite knowing it wouldn’t work, Bangarang slammed its fist down into the ground right in front of it. The Stand swam through the fist and up into Vinyl’s foot.
Vinyl immediately had Bangarang grab her shoe, pulling it off her foot and flinging it away. The Stand remained inside it, and was flung into a nearby grouping of trashcans. It immediately began to swim out of and through the cans, still targeting her.
She had to go somewhere where the Stand couldn’t get to her. It clearly had a destination in her, so there was no use in trying to lose it. But if she could find a way to make it have to go more of a distance to get to her than she had to get away from it, then she’d give herself the time she needed to think.
An idea flared into her head. Immediately, Vinyl turned towards the dumpster she’d pressed against. Then she climbed on top of it. The building she was up against was the outside of a small shop that had two rows of windows, and that meant it had multiple floors. Without looking to check the Stand, Vinyl huffed willed Bangarang to jump up and pull the window open. She heard something snap, and then it slid open.
Vinyl had Bangarang lift her up on its shoulders so she could grab the open window. It boosted her up as far as it could go, and Vinyl pulled with all her might. She flopped hard into the window, landing in the middle of a dining room. Thankfully, nopony was home for her to have to explain her presence just yet. She scrambled back up to her feet, then jumped back onto the windowsill and used it to boost herself up even further. The roof was now just within her reach. Bangarang helped give her that perfect amount of boost she needed to finally pull herself up onto it fully.
Now came the hard part. Vinyl looked to the next building and gauged the distance. It was slightly lower than this building, perhaps maybe five feet away if she was calculating the right way. Vinyl backed herself up and immediately ran hard towards the edge of the roof she was on, and jumped. She crossed her arms as she leapt through the air, leaping between the buildings. A second later, her feet hit the inside of the edge of the next building, and she stumbled forward hard until she hit her knees.
She shot her eyes behind her, even as she groaned and pulled herself up to her feet. A surge of victory filled her. The Stand had swum all the way to the roof of the next building, and now had to turn and swim down that building to get to the roof of the next building! Vinyl smirked in victory, but knew it would be short lived if she didn’t capitalize on this.
From the brief look, she knew the Stand was swimming incredibly fast now. She quickly began to walk towards the other end of the roof, her hand on her chest. Her chest and legs were burning, but she couldn’t stop now. She had to figure out what was making the Stand follow her. Or more importantly, how it was getting faster every time she seemed to turn around and look at it!
Something had to be changing between every time she looked at the Stand. If the Stand was speeding up, perhaps it was tracking something? Perhaps it was like listening for music; the louder it got, the easier it was to find where the source was. If it was tracking something that way, then something had to be getting louder… or faster.
The only thing that Vinyl could think of off the top of her head that was different between each time she saw the Stand and now was her heart beating faster.
Was that it? The faster Vinyl’s heart beat, the faster the Stand would be? That was the only explanation that Vinyl could think of. And if it was linked to how faster her heart was beating, then it wouldn’t be too much of a leap in logic to assume that it was tracking her by her heartbeat as well. That would certainly explain how it was able to find her so easily. If that was true, then Vinyl would not be able to ditch the Stand. She would need to defeat it.
The problem was that she couldn’t touch the Stand at all. It treated any solid object like a liquid. If Vinyl had just one source of heavy vibrations, then she could counterattack. She would have to improvise. She needed to think and find a source. But it was hard to think when the thing that was already right up in her face again.
Even her massive improvisation had only brought her so much time, and now she’d burned through it. Vinyl snapped her head to the next building, and gulped. It was far taller than the one she was on now. Could she jump down? A quick glance told her no. But she had to do something, for the Stand was now swimming right through the roof and ready to leap towards her.
Vinyl ran to the adjacent side of the room that faced the main street. Was there anything she could use? When she looked down, she held back a grin. There was a large overhang for the front door, and one that looked maybe just sturdy enough to take her weight. There wasn’t any time to test it, for the second she slid down the side of the roof, the Stand had leapt towards her once more.
Thankfully, Vinyl hit the overhang first with her knees slightly bent, absorbing some of the impact. The Stand soared over her heard, its leap carrying it into the sidewalk under her. Despite the burning pain in her legs from taking that jump, Vinyl forced herself to awkwardly slide down to the overhang and slide off again. She landed once more with her knees bent, causing her to tremble from the pain. Yet the startled gasps of ponies of Vinyl seemingly descending from the sky was nothing compared to her own fear at seeing the Stand swimming through the sidewalk at her again.
It was too close this time for Vinyl to use her produce to defend herself, her basket being long gone with her climbing. She needed something bigger. Seeing the street up ahead with a car coming, Vinyl took a deep gulp and knew her only chance of surviving was a risky move. She darted out right in front of the car. Right before it hit her, she jumped above its hood and slid across it to the other side, right before the Stand leapt from the ground. This achieved the exact result Vinyl had hoped for. While the driver was blaring their horn and shouting profanities, the Stand had dove into the bottom of the car. Even more to her luck, the driver drove away, taking the Stand with it.
With a few more seconds to think, Vinyl started running forward along the sidewalk again. She put her hands to her temples and tried to think of anywhere that would make loud noises nearby. Her own club was completely leveled, and that was the loudest place in town. As her ideas came up blank, she cursed Ponyville for being a relatively small and quiet town. Why couldn’t she have been in a bigger city with a lot more noise?
Then it dawned on Vinyl. Small town becoming bigger! Right over the tops of the buildings nearby, she could see the peak of a massive crane. There was a building under construction just a few blocks from where she was! With all of the heavy machinery there, she could easily find ammo for Bangarang. This realization couldn’t have come at a better time either. By now, the Stand had gotten out of the car, and was back in her sight.
Vinyl took off running down the sidewalk. Thankfully, the car was going the complete opposite direction as the site, and she could make it there before it did… hopefully. Despite the pain in her legs from climbing and running, she made her way to the side as quickly as she could. Many ponies looked towards her with confused or annoyed expressions, but she could deal with an explanation for her actions today later. Right now, she had to survive.
By the time that Vinyl reached the construction site, her assassin had made up for all of the lost gains on her. It was coming right back down the sidewalk, her running having let it maintain its top speed. She crossed over the yellow tape and flew across the mounds of dirt, not even looking back at the Stand. A wheelbarrel and several boxes were knocked over from her running into them. She passed by several machines and equipment, but that wasn’t what she was there for.
She spotted the crane in operation and ran directly towards it. Ignoring all of the cries from construction workers about her lack of a hard hat, she wrenched the small metal gate and threw herself into the crane’s base. Vinyl had Bangarang shove its cord into the crane as hard as it could. She then skidded to a halt and pivoted around. The Stand was mere inches away from her body, and Vinyl brought her hands over her ears a second before she willed her Stand to activate.
What followed was a shrill, mechanical sound that erupted directly from the speaker in Bangarang’s hand. All of the construction workers held their hands over their ears at the sudden loud noise, but were otherwise unharmed. The force of the vibrations were concentrated entirely in the Stand’s direction. The results were immediate. Along with all the dirt and objects in its direction, the Stand was sent flying backwards through the air.
Vinyl didn’t let up, however. She kept forcing the sound of the crane’s engine out Bangarang’s hand for as long as she could, trying to do as much to the Stand as possible with it. She couldn’t even see it at this point, but she still kept projecting. A massive v-shaped crater was left in the dirt, digging its way all the way down until rocks could be seen under it. A massive dust cloud was created and fell over the site.
Eventually, however, the sound stopped and nothing but silence came out of Bangarang’s hand. The operator of the crane had stopped the machine and had gotten out to see what was wrong with every pony. Vinyl pulled her hands away from her ears and rubbed her temples, waving the dust away from her face. It slowly began to clear as she coughed it away from her face.
Squinting her eyes, Vinyl tried to spot the Stand to see what damage she had done to it. She had hoped that she had defeated it, but would settle for at least injuring it. Across the construction site, she could see a massive pile of dirt from where her Stand had blasted it backwards. The Stand’s body could be seen poking right up out of it. As soon as the soundwaves stopped, The Stand resumed its pursuit. It appeared to be completely unharmed or unhindered.
Vinyl cried out and ran towards the building frame. This Stand seemed to be invincible. Or at the very least, nothing she could do to it would be able to harm it. That amount of vibrations might have been able to shatter bones if somepony tried to stand directly in front of it! Somehow, this thing wasn’t even phased by it!
That left her with only one other option: to find the user. Much like her own scuffle with Pinkie Pie, incapacitating the Stand User would completely shut down the Stand itself. The Princess had affirmed this in her discussion on Stands as well. Beat the user, the Stand would give up.
This is why Vinyl was currently climbing the building frame. She used Bangarang to lift her up level to level, until she was finally what would be the top of the second story. From up here, she had a pretty good view of everything. She looked around for somepony, anypony who seemed remotely suspicious. But she couldn’t see anypony. Nopony was around except for the construction workers below, who were all in a panic at her being up so high. The only other thing she saw was the Stand, which was swimming up the side of the frame.
Getting down the way she came was not an option. It would be too slow and cause Vinyl to cross paths with the assassin. She needed to take a more direct route. Her earlier method came to mind, and she grimaced. After taking in a deep breath, Vinyl leapt from where she was. She tried to ignore the screams of the construction workers she was probably traumatizing right now and concentrate. She had no idea if this would even work or not.
While she was falling, Vinyl called out Bangarang. Her Stand pulled the cord from its body and threw it at the crane. She then had Bangarang grab her and use the cord as a tether to swing itself itself forward. When it was approaching the height of its arc, Bangarang recalled its cord. The momentum it built up caused it to continue flying forward, over the fence of the construction sight, and forcing itself to stop just a few inches below the ground due to its levitating properties.
If Vinyl had been trying to lower her heart rate this whole time, she had just done a poor job of it. She had never felt such a rush in her life. Thankfully, she had managed to put some distance between her and the Stand. The fence would slow it down every so slightly, as it seemed to only be single-mindedly swimming directly towards her.
That was about the only good think of Vinyl could think of in this situation. There was a Stand trying to kill her right now. Not only could she not harm it, but she also couldn’t find the user. Nothing about this was looking good for Vinyl. It appeared as though the only fate for her was going to be death. She was certain she didn’t want to die!
So she kept on running, trying to find some way, any way, out of this. She was in pure desperation mode at this point. All of her plans had ended in failure. She tried to think of a new one frantically as she focused on her survival. Her sprint led her into a crowd of ponies, and eventually a dead end.
Now forced to stop, Vinyl turned around and looked all around her. She couldn’t see the Stand at all. For a moment, that breaking of line of sight made her heart rate drop a tiny bit. Yet after a moment, she recalled something: the Stand could swim through ponies! All of these ponies around her, the Stand could have been inside of any one of them! Fear sank into Vinyl to the point where her teeth were chattering now. She slowly and cautiously walked through the crowd.
Everypony around her now was a potential threat. Vinyl was constantly looking over her shoulder. She looked to the sides and examined everypony carefully. She didn’t catch sight of the Stand yet, and that scared her even more. Paranoia sank in at the thought that she might have missed it. The walk seemed to last a million years. But at the end of that time, she made it through the entire crowd without seeing the Stand. Vinyl breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh my Celestia, it’s Vinyl Scratch!” Vinyl nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the voice behind her. Turning around, she saw it was just a young colt who seemed ecstatic to see her. “I can’t believe it’s really you! I love your music so much! Can I get your autograph? I think I have some paper in my pocket for you to sign.
As the colt dug through his pants pockets, Vinyl saw his shirt begin to ripple like liquid. To her shock, the Stand was swimming out of her fan! Vinyl cried out and shoved the colt to his butt before darting off in the opposite direction.
“W-wait, come back!” The colt cried out, holding a pen and paper in the air. “Please! I’ll only be in Ponyville another day! Please let me get your autograph!” When Vinyl looked back at him, she could see that the Stand was still coming out of the fan’s stomach. It was hitching a ride on him for now. Vinyl hated to refuse this kid her autograph, but he was unknowingly carrying her death on him!
Everything was overwhelming Vinyl now. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t formulate a plan based on any sort of logic. She didn’t even think about where she was going to at this point. She was acting on pure instinct now. Her body was on autopilot. She had nowhere to go. Nowhere was safe. She…. she had to get someplace safe!
And this is how she found herself running straight through the town, pushing past any and all ponies that stood in her way. There was only one place that she ever had thought of as completely safe. Despite running almost halfway across the entire town, she soon found herself running upstairs to her apartment and slamming the door shut behind her.
“Vinyl?” Octavia, Vinyl’s roommate, called from down the hall. “Is that you? For buck’s sake, how many times must I tell you not to slam the door like that?”
Vinyl clutched her chest. She felt like she was going to collapse. Running so hard, so long, by now she felt like she would throw up. She gasped desperately, her entire body quivering.
The grey mare walked down from the hall, carrying a basket of freshly washed laundry. “Didn’t I tell you to pick up the ingredients for dinner tonight on your way home from the doctor? Don’t tell me you forgot them.”
Right now, Vinyl was huffing and puffing too hard with her back pressed to the front door to even register her roommate's nagging. In fact, it took her a minute to even realize that Octavia was there at all.
Vinyl wheezed as she tried to get her breath. When she did turn to look at Octavia, Vinyl’s eyes instantly fixed on the laundry basket. Bangarang appeared behind her, but it was too late. The basket rippled for a half second right before the Stand shot out from the basket and leapt right towards Vinyl’s heart.
~~~
Vinyl Scratch’s heart stopped. A moment later, Façade felt Temposhark disappear from existence. The feeling made him let out a small sigh. Reaching down, he slowly crossed an image of Vinyl’s cutie mark from a list.
Another assassination carried on behalf of his cult. Though he wasn’t apart of the Inner Circle, Façade had his place within the organization. Just like Crimson, he had a very specific and unique task on his hands: Façade was tasked with cleaning up every loose end that Crimson Spirit left behind with his -or any other member’s- failure. This involved assassinating every Stand user the failure had created, including killing Princess Twilight Sparkle and her friends, the five miscellaneous users pierced by the arrow, and then finally dealing with Crimson himself.
Though it was very tricky to activate, requiring him to memorize the rhythm of his victim’s heartbeat, there was a reason his speciality was assassinations. Crimson’s Stand let him create allies within any setting; his Stand was very efficient at killing once it got started. Thankfully for Façade, he was great at impersonating doctors. Once Temposhark locked onto a target, it would not disappear until he either made it, or its target’s heart stopped. In the past year, he’d taken care of fourteen ponies. This was his largest order yet, but he had no doubts the task was outside his abilities.
He chose his first target to be Vinyl Scratch because he learned she had a doctor’s appointment coming up soon. Posing as a substitute doctor was easy enough. This allowed him to get Vinyl’s heartbeat down very directly. For the rest of his targets, it would not be as simple. He would need to sit in the crowd and use magic to listen to their heartbeats from afar. It was a hard task, with so many possibilities for screw ups. But it would prove to be most efficient when Temposhark locked on.
Right now, Façade just had to dispose of Vinyl’s corpse. This would involve a lot of messy and time consuming processes. It was almost a shame he didn’t have Crimson here to help him; that stallion was always so talented at quick and easy disposal. Thankfully, he had been able to sense that his Stand ceased inside of an apartment building. He was afforded the luxury of privacy. Everything just seemed to be falling falling into his favor today.
That is what Façade was thinking to himself when he opened the front door to the apartment, and saw Vinyl leaning up against the opposite wall. At first, he assumed she’d simply died slumped against it. But a closer look of his revealed her arms were crossed, her face was scowling angrily, and she was very much still alive.
“H...How?!” Was all Façade had time to stutter before he was grabbed by Bangarang.
~~~
There were a lot of dumb moves made by Vinyl today. Jumping off buildings, running headlong through crowds, and swinging from cranes were all dumb ideas. This was perhaps the dumbest one she made yet. She made up this plan in mere seconds, but it was her only fringe chance of living.
The second she saw Temposhark, Vinyl kicked the laundry basket out of Octavia’s hands. What happened next transpired too fast for either of them to fully see. Vinyl caught Temposhark on her leg, forcing it to swim up her body. She kicked her leg up so high that she started to fall over backwards.
As she fell, Vinyl moved Bangarang in a very unusual place. It was half inside her body. Using the hand that was inside of her, Bangarang grabbed its user’s heart and held it still. Instantly, the worst pain she’d ever felt in her entire life had consumed her. Her chest felt ready to truly explode, her limbs went still, and her eyes were frozen open. Her body screamed at her to let it go, but she kept a grip on the organ through sheer willpower. If this Stand was tracking her through her heartbeat, then if she had none, then would it go away?
As stupid and dangerous as her plan was, it worked. The second her heart stopped, Temposhark disappeared. This normally would have been a hollow victory, since Vinyl’s heart still stopped either way. This was Temposhark’s goal in the first place. But Vinyl had already started a way to restart her heart.
At the same time Bangarang was grabbing its user’s heart with the hand inside of her, it launched its cord with the one that was outside. The cord’s destination was directly for Octavia’s throat. And as Octavia yelled at Vinyl, asking her what the buck had she just done to herself, she swore she heard her own voice echo from inside her roommate’s chest.
The vibrations of Octavia’s voice were enough to restart the beating of Vinyl’s heart. She jolted awake, taking in a deep breath as she just improvised a defibrillation on herself. Even as she was still yelled at by Tavi, Vinyl grinned from ear to ear, knowing she had just won.
“Vinyl Scratch!!” Tavi shouted, “I just folded all that! Explain yourself!”
Vinyl slowly coughed, slowly turning her head up towards Tavi. Despite the pain she felt, her lips were curled into a massive grin as she plugged Bangarang back into her throat, “Heh...heh...heh…” She rubbed her chest, “Look, I’ll explain later. Right now, do you think you can get some water?” She sighed, “My heart is beating so fast right now…”
~~~
“Alright, so you know I’ve got a lot of questions for you,” Vinyl’s voice echoed through Bangarang. “And trust me, I intend to beat them all out of you in a bit. But for now, you’ve really ticked me off with all the running you and your dumb Stand forced me to go through today. So would you mind if I blew off a little steam first?”
Of course, Vinyl didn’t wait for a response from Façade. She simply walked towards the kitchen, having Bangarang drag him while he struggled and kicked in the Stand’s grasp. Vinyl leaned up against her dishwasher. Bangarang tossed its cord to her. Vinyl plugged the cord into the dishwasher. Bangarang put both of the speaker’s on its palms up against Façade’s ears. Vinyl turned a knob on the dishwasher up to eleven.
“Time for the wub cycle, baby!”
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Temposhark acts a bit like Oasis, in it that while Oasis can only swim through stone, Temposhark can swim through anything.
9693770
I was thinking that at first, but I realized the Stands aren't that alike at all once you think about it. Temposhark swims through solid objects as if they were liquid. Oasis turns solid objects around it into mud, allowing it to swim through it. So, much like The World and King Crimson, similar effect, different cause.
YOU ARE MEAN!
XD
The entire Cult must be eliminated and the members executed. No Argument about that anything less os extreamly lethal.