Knight of Cerberus
Tourist Trap walked through the dark forest, pulling his gift shop safari hat down tighter. The trees loomed over him; the brambles waited patiently to snake out, trip, and snare him; and the stars in the sky felt like beady eyes watching his every move. His hoofsteps echoed almost as loudly as his heartbeat.
He stopped to take a deep breath and calm himself. A chilly breeze came through, bushes rustling and the branches overhead creaking, all while his hoofsteps echoed.
Wait. He wasn’t walking. So what was echoing…?
A scream pierced the forest, sending a flock of birds into flight.
* * *
Vinyl yawned, the afternoon sun streaming through the window. It had only been a few days since her brother’s newest special assignment from the Tutor High Council had pulled him off to Celestia knows where to face Luna knows what, and nothing of interest had happened since. Nothing in the realm of Monster Tamers, at least. After helping LP face down hydras, manticores, witches, and those Tamer Hunter cultists, the monotony of an empty house hadn’t felt so deadening since Octavia had left with her orchestra.
“Hey, Cat,” she moaned, laying across the sofa like a wet towel, “is another Everfree Monster attacking Ponyville yet? It’s overdue.”
“Mrrow…,” replied the white cat with the light blue bow on its head, perched atop the back of the sofa.
“Cat,” she repeated.
The cat sighed. “No, Vinyl,” he said, “there are no Monsters of the evil or feral varieties anywhere in sight, you should be happy about this.”
Vinyl responded with a groan. “Then is there anything else to do?”
“Well, you could try keeping up with your music career,” That Cat said, “you made enough of a fuss about it at the beginning.”
“Yeah, but then I saw just how much LP’s gig with the Council paid,” said Vinyl. “Just my cut for what I helped with paid my rent to the end of the year. If I had his job, I wouldn’t need another roommate ever again. That or I could move into Town Hall.”
“Lest you forget,” That Cat pointed out, “but your brother underwent many years of training to become a high-level Tamer specifically to learn to face the worst of the worst feral Monsters Equestria had to offer, it’s not something you go into for the pay. If you want to do something productive, you could instead try to come up with a better name for me again.”
“It’s been ‘That Cat’ since we met,” Vinyl said, “changing it now would just be pointless.”
“Like I actually expected that to work,” That Cat sighed.
Suddenly there was a flash of purple light, and a black, seemingly stone envelope with a purple aura was now floating over the coffee table next to the couch. Vinyl sat up and rubbed her eyes to make sure she was seeing this, quickly noticing that her normal magenta eyes had flared to her glowing red Tamer eyes—whatever this was, it had Monster written all over it. As That Cat jumped down for a closer look at the arcane symbols etched onto the front of the envelope, Vinyl pulled the Tamer Handbook over with magic and began flipping through it.
“You won’t find this in there,” said That Cat. “I’ve never actually seen one before, but I know enough to recognize this as a message sent directly from Tartarus.”
“Tartarus? No way!” Vinyl said excitedly, tossing the book aside and snatching the floating envelope in her hoof.
“And I thought I taught her so well…,” That Cat bemoaned as Vinyl opened the envelope and pulled out a parchment letter with a jagged edge where one of its corners should be.
“‘Vinyl Scratch, Monster Tamer,’” Vinyl read, “‘is hereby summoned to the Gates of Tartarus’—what the heck?” She turned the letter over, but that’s all that was written. “Cat, is this some sort of a joke among Tamers?”
“Messages from Tartarus are no joke, Vinyl,” That Cat said gravely. “If they ask something of you, you have to obey them, it’s like jury duty.” Then he put on a smile. “Lucky for you, Tartarus is only about a day’s walk or so from Ponyville, just remember to bring enough bits for going both ways on the River Styx ferry.”
“So I’m supposed to just drop everything and go all the way out there?”
“Drop what everything?”
“What for, anyway?” Vinyl said, looking over the letter again. “Who even sent this? The bottom corner of the page where the name would go is bitten—” She looked over at That Cat, but found that they were both suddenly standing in front of a large pair of wooden doors set into a long wall of tall jagged black rocks much like the envelope, scattered blue flames burning atop it. “…off.” The sky was pitch black, and the air itself felt ominously foreboding. Clearly, this was not the house. “This is Tartarus,” she said.
“I know,” That Cat replied.
“Okay, what did I do to end up here?”
“You complained you had nothing to do.”
“Shut up.”
The Gate of Tartarus opened in front of them with a loud creak, revealing the timeless other dimension beyond where prisoners spent all of eternity in cold and unending confinement. Tall jagged black peaks surrounded by purple auras rose from the abyss below, their hollow peaks shining whitish blue spotlights to the sky, all connected by narrow rock staircases. There was notably less fire than some stories depicted.
Walking up to them through the Gate came the lumbering figure of a giant black bulldog with three heads, each wearing a spiked collar. The right head carried a wooden crate in its mouth.
“That’s Cerberus,” said Vinyl.
“I know,” That Cat replied.
“Greetings, Tamer,” Cerberus’ center head spoke in a deep voice, nodding to Vinyl. “I have summoned you to my domain because I require your aid in a matter most urgent. A prisoner here has escaped, and I have deemed you capable of recapturing them. I ask you kindly, will you accept?”
Vinyl stared at him for a few seconds as if processing the request. Then she turned to That Cat. “So is he like a Monster, or…”
“Cerberus is a friend of the Tutor High Council,” That Cat explained through a facepaw, “but we mostly work separately.” He addressed Cerberus, trying to mask his nervousness, “We are greatly honored by your invitation and flattered by your offer, o Guardian of the Gate, but due to the sudden nature of this request, we may see it necessary to discuss this matter between ourselves for a brief—”
“What do you want me for?” Vinyl asked, That Cat stopping short.
“I believe you remember…,” Cerberus said, moving to the side to allow a much smaller two-headed brown dog to step into view. One head snarled at them while the other happily chewed on a metal chain.
“Oh yeah,” said Vinyl, “from that one time with Neon, the…Orthoramus thing.”
“Orthros,” Cerberus said, “my brother.”
“Brother?” Vinyl said. “Yeah, I can see the family resemblance of being multi-headed dogs.”
That Cat tensed up. “Vinyl—,” he said through clenched teeth, but was cut off by Cerberus’ left head snorting.
“He had been stolen,” the center head continued, “and you freed him, without even being told to.”
Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “And you decided to pay me back by…asking me for another favor?”
That Cat tensed further. “Vinyl!—”
“Do not be nervous, Tutor,” Cerberus said. “Her attitude amuses me. Now,” he again looked to Vinyl, “I know from your actions that you are worthy, and I am confident that you will not decline.”
“And you’re sure of this, how?” she asked.
“Because I know you,” he said. “I know your type. You will not allow anyone to get hurt, if there is something you can do about it.” Vinyl softly nodded to herself. “There is currently a beast, a terror, intended for the depths of Tartarus, that is now running loose, ready and willing to wreak its havoc on those it encounters. I know that neither of us want that, if for our own reasons.”
“Then why don’t you just go and get this thing yourself?” she asked. “You look…capable.”
“What kind of guard would I be if I were to abandon my post?” he replied. “Doing so would only give opportunity for others to escape as well.”
“That how it got out in the first place?” she said. The center head growled at her, and she jumped back. “I’ll take that as a ‘drop it if you want to keep your head’.”
“So,” Cerberus said, “can I count upon you?”
“Vinyl,” That Cat whispered to her, “I trust your judgment as a Tamer, but you don’t have to do anything you don’t—”
“I’m in,” Vinyl said.
“—as if I’m in any surprise,” That Cat groaned.
Cerberus stepped closer. “In honor of services rendered, both past and future,” he said, “I name thee, Vinyl Scratch, an official Knight of Cerberus.”
“It’s an honor,” Vinyl said, bowing. “Of course, three obvious questions,” she said as she stood back up. “What, where, and how?”
Cerberus’ right head set the wooden box in its mouth on the ground.
“For the how,” the center head said, “I am afraid a Tamer’s Dom Box will not work for this entity, due to its…nature. Inside here is a special vessel I have created to simulate the function as best as possible. For the where, I believe it will be lurking within its old territory, the forest between Ponyville and Winsome Falls. It is a ghostly entity, from the realm of fears and nightmares.”
“Haunting its old haunt, eh?” Vinyl smirked. “So spill, what is it?”
“It has been called by many as an old mare’s tale,” said Cerberus, “a mere campfire story, but this spooky tale is as real as it seemed. Your target is…the Headless Horse.”
Vinyl paused. “Okay, you had me until that last part. So maybe the Olden Pony was a future-eating parasite, but there’s only so much you can—”
“Be off!” barked Cerberus.
Vinyl cringed and ducked, but when she looked up, she and That Cat were back in her house, and her eyes had stopped glowing.
“How does he do that?” she asked.
“Gee, I don’t know,” That Cat said sarcastically, “maybe you could ask for an interview next time.”
The dark envelope was gone, and sitting on the table in its place was the box. It was an ordinary-looking wooden chest, flat on all sides, about one by two feet and a foot high, and with a small oval-shaped iron emblem on top featuring words in a language Vinyl couldn’t read.
“So, that ‘vessel’ he mentioned is in here?” she said, unhooking the latch with her magenta magic.
“Are you even trying to be cautious?” chided That Cat.
“If it was so dangerous,” she replied, “then why would he send it right into the living room—?” She tipped the chest open, and a cloud of steam burst out, making them both jump. As the cloud rose and dissipated, a thicker layer of steam remained filling the inside of the box, obscuring any contents. Vinyl reached around in the steam with magic before finding something, fishing out an alarm clock. The two stared at it for a few seconds.
“Okay?” she said. “Are we sure he gave us the right box?”
Vinyl stared at the alarm clock while That Cat pulled supplies into a backpack for her in the background. It was analog, with a round face set onto a square body. The front side was silver while the rest was black. There was a silver snooze button on top. Nope, nothing about this ‘vessel’ resembled a Dom Box. She pressed the snooze button, the face lighting up and the alarm going off.
“Doesn’t Cerberus know that hitting snooze should make the alarm turn off,” she commented aloud, “not go off?” She let go and both light and alarm stopped.
“It obviously works that way for a reason,” That Cat said as he passed by with a tube of sunscreen.
Vinyl hit snooze again, but nothing happened. The clock had also stopped ticking. “Well, looks like it was one use only, it’s ruined now, I failed.”
“There’s a winding dial on the back,” That Cat said as he passed by again with bug spray.
“Yep, yep, totally knew that,” she said, winding it back up. She hit snooze again and the light and alarm triggered like before.
“Then again, maybe you will break it if you keep doing that,” he said as he passed by yet again with bug bite cream.
“Right, right,” she said, winding it again and putting it down. That Cat grabbed it off the table and packed it away in a pocket of the stuffed backpack. “So, when do we leave?”
“We won’t be leaving,” That Cat said, “you will be.”
“Not coming?” she asked. “Too scared?”
“I have important things to discuss with the Tutor High Council regarding your brother’s new mission,” he replied. “Besides, you’re more than qualified to handle this on your own. Even Cerberus said so. Oh, and you should probably leave right now so you get there before it’s dark.”
“Heh, as if I’m walking there,” Vinyl said, twirling the Second Golden Horseshoe around her hoof.
After riding the Horseshoe’s transport cloud to the edge of the forest, she’d taken to the ground to search, the tree cover being too thick to scout from the air. By early evening, Vinyl had made it a decent way into the forest. She’d kept her eyes peeled and waited for her Tamer sense to tingle, but she hadn’t found or detected anything.
“Where are you, Headless Horse?” Vinyl called into the trees, again to no reply. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” She sighed, then called up her Tamer power, her eyes glowing red.
Voice Dom!
“I said get out here right now!” she shouted in frustration, her commanding Tamer’s tone echoing. She turned to the sound of rustling leaves to see a nervous-looking purple Bobak, a harmless Monster with a body made of transparent jelly, in a safari hat stepping out from behind some bushes. “No, not you,” she sighed. The Bobak tried making a hasty retreat before Vinyl realized Bobaks don’t usually wear hats. “Wait, hang on a second. I said stop.”
The Bobak froze in place at her Tamer voice. “A-anything not to get on the bad side of a Tamer,” he stuttered, his accent betraying his learn-ed status.
“It’s nothing about you,” Vinyl said, walking over, “I just want to know if you know anything about something called the Headless Horse.”
“Headless Horse?” he said. “That’s just a story, isn’t it?”
“Actually,” said Vinyl, taking a closer look at his hat, “I do have a question about you. Where’d you get that hat?”
“It’s mine,” he snapped.
“Really?” Vinyl said. “Because it has two ear holes made for a pony to wear it.”
The Bobak paused. “I-it’s mine because I found it.”
This guy knew something, she could tell. “Spill.”
“Okay, okay, I…,” the Bobak started. “Wait a second, come to think of it, that’s what he said.” He noticed Vinyl’s stare. “Some pony had been camping in these woods, but one night he suddenly started shouting all about the Headless Horse. I came looking by his camp a minute later and found this hat that he left, but he was gone.”
“So, it is here,” Vinyl muttered. “Where was this pony camping?”
“Up by the ridge with the waterfall, about a mile that way,” said the Bobak, pointing. “Just one thing, can I keep the hat?” He smiled innocently. Vinyl waved for him to leave and he sped away, then she set off towards the ridge.
Sight Dom!
Vinyl closed her eyes and concentrated. Faded images flashed in her mind of the surrounding area, quickly zooming down path after path through the trees, coming across nothing but more trees.
Determining the area was safe and feeling a little worn out, she dropped her backpack on the side of the trail and laid down for a brief rest so she could be more alert at night, resting her head on a smooth slab of rock. She thought for a second to try setting the alarm clock to wake her back up, but she felt too lazy to bother with that now and it would probably be best not to mess with the vessel and she was already drifting…off…
Vinyl strolled through a forest of black and mangled trees, the ground a faded red and the star-dotted sky a deep violet. Her hoofbeats echoed in the distance. She stopped and stared at the trees’ bare branches, noticing their edges were faded and waving as if in a light breeze that wasn’t blowing. More than a few things about this situation told her this was a dream.
Then she realized that the hoofbeats hadn’t stopped. She looked back and saw a figure slowly approaching up the path, a dark silhouette of a large pony with a stump for a neck.
“Yeah, I wish finding you was this easy,” Vinyl said. The figure started to canter towards her, then broke into a gallop. She knew this was a dream so there was nothing to worry about, but something didn’t feel right. It is a ghostly entity, Cerberus’ words repeated in her head, from the realm of fears and nightmares. “Fears and nightmares?” she said. “Wait, that couldn’t mean this is actually the—?”
The figure ran into a stream of moonlight ten feet from her, revealing no additional colors or features. On instinct, Vinyl reached to the saddlebag she knew the vessel was in, but it wouldn’t open.
She leapt aside, the Headless Horse thundering past and skidding to a stop. Vinyl pulled at the saddlebag’s flap again, but the latch wouldn’t let go.
“What gives?” she said, trying to see what was catching, but the details of the object were blurred, covered by the simple fact of the knowledge of what was there. As the shadow of the Headless Horse fell over her from behind, she took off galloping through the forest. Fear? Maybe. To regroup? That’s what she told herself.
An extra set of hoofbeats followed her among the trees. Then the ground dropped away and she slid down a slope, stopping at the base of a cliff wall in front of her. She pulled at the saddlebag’s flap with magic, but the latch still refused to give.
“Rrrrg,” she growled, straining her neck muscles as if tugging her horn against an invisible rope. “Why. Aren’t. You. Opening!”
A loud demonic whinny came from beside her, and she glanced up to see the Headless Horse a foot away, reared and flailing its hooves. She dove aside as it threw its hooves forward, shattering a stone set into the cliff to dust, and she landed with a thud—
Vinyl opened her eyes with a gasp, then a sigh. Then a raised eyebrow. More puzzling than the dream was why she was now stretched over towards her backpack and appeared to have been clawing at one of the pockets…the same pocket where the vessel was. So I couldn’t reach the vessel in the dream because I couldn’t reach it in real life? she thought. Nah, that’s ridiculous, dreams are just dreams. I’m sure that wasn’t even the real Headless—
Looking back to where she’d started out sleeping, she saw the stone she’d used as a pillow now splintered into twenty-some chunks around two deep hoof-shaped impact craters.
“Gaah!” she screamed, scampering a few feet away. She looked over from behind her backpack, trying to slow her breathing. “That…that definitely wasn’t just a dream.” She cautiously stepped over to the shattered stone. She put her hoof into one of the craters; the hoof that caused it was definitely bigger than hers. This thing must be able to attack you in your dreams, and if it catches you… She shuttered.
She looked up at the darkening sky. It was deep into dusk, and total night would be here soon. The perfect time for it to hunt, and she had to make sure she was the prey. But now she had an advantage. Now she knew the rules of the game.
Vinyl hadn’t gotten very much farther towards the campsite when she got the eerie feeling of being watched. She stopped, quickly glancing around. The Headless Horse couldn’t attack you outside a dream, could it? Something sped overhead with a screech, Vinyl ducking down but sighing when she saw it was just an owl.
Suddenly an equine figure burst from the bushes and grabbed her by her backpack straps, shouting into her face, “Don’t fall aslaaayp!”
“Whoa, easy there!” she said, reflexively shoving the pony off of her. As he got back up, she saw he was a brown earth stallion with a moustache, a torn Hawaiian t-shirt, and bloodshot eyes. Figures it was just a pony, her Tamer sense hadn’t triggered. “Calm down, man, are you alright?”
“The Headless Horse is here,” Tourist Trap continued, fidgeting, “in these woods! He comes at night and gets you right inside your draayms!”
“Headless Horse?” Vinyl said. She tried her best to laugh and sound nonchalant to diffuse the situation. “Oh, nonsense, I’m sure that’s just campfire parano—”
“Staying awake is your only defense,” he rambled on. “I haven’t slept in two days!”
“Two days?” she repeated, mumbling, “Thanks for waiting so long, Cerberus. This is probably the guy that Bobak was talking about.” Then a thought hit her. “Wait, you’ve been out here for two days? If you say it’s so dangerous, why haven’t you left?”
The pony looked around. “He scared me away from my camp, and…that’s where my map was,” he answered sheepishly.
Vinyl resisted a facehoof. “Here, take mine, Ponyville’s that way,” she said, handing over her map and pointing through the woods.
Tourist Trap was gone in a flash, racing up the trail towards civilization. “I’m never camping again!”
“At least offer to not leave me stranded here without a map,” Vinyl said to herself as she continued on.
The moon had risen high into the sky by the time Vinyl came across the pony’s abandoned campsite sitting just in front of a large cave. Okay, so this was a more decently secure place than just anywhere along the trail to face her quarry from. She used Sight Dom again to scan the extent of the cave and found nothing, setting out her stuff a short distance inside. She laid down the zipped sleeping bag as a cushion, as getting inside would only constrict her if that vessel inaccessibility earlier was anything to go by, laying on it before placing the vessel easily within reach. When Cerberus said that Dom Boxes wouldn’t work because of the Headless Horse’s nature, he probably meant facing it in dreams, so the vessel had to work there somehow, right? After setting up a low-light lantern so she could easily see in a pinch, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, slowly letting herself drift off to sleep…
Vinyl was standing a ways outside the spooky nightmare forest, the sound of rushing water coming from over a cliff a bit behind her. Staying still, the sound of echoing hoofsteps didn’t fool her for a second this time. The Headless Horse slowly walked into view within the forest in an admittedly ominous manner, speeding up to a gallop and charging her. Vinyl smirked.
“Think I’m scared?” she called to it as it exited the forest, her eyes glowing red. “Think again.”
Energy Dom!
Vinyl raised her right hoof and unleashed a beam of pure Dom power, the green energy beam burning through the Headless Horse’s form, bringing it skidding to a stop with a gaping hole seared right through its chest and out its back, leaving a divot running down to its tail. It stood there in silence, seemingly stunned by the encounter.
Vinyl easily whipped the vessel out of her saddlebag and held it up at the Headless Horse. “Ha!” she shouted in victory.
And nothing happened.
Vinyl glanced at the vessel. Yep, this was it. Then she noticed that whatever material the Headless Horse’s living silhouette body was made of had begun to expand back into the hole she’d blasted.
She nudged the vessel forward again, this time with more oomph. “Come on, in ya go.” Still nothing. The hole had almost fully disappeared by now. Vinyl shook the vessel up and down at it. “If you’re gonna work, you might wanna do it, like, now!”
Suddenly the Headless Horse was in front of her, and it kicked the vessel out of her hooves, sending it flying over the edge of the cliff.
“Okay, not as simple as a Dom Box,” she said nervously. “Could’ve given me instructions, Cerberus!”
With a shrill whinny, the Headless Horse flailed its hooves and tried bringing them down on Vinyl, but she ducked down—
Enviro Dom!
—and an energy shield dome rose up around her, blocking them. She was doing this the hard way, then. From the other side of her saddlebags she pulled out and donned her sunglasses, dots of green Dom energy accumulating on the lenses before starting to swirl around. Putting her hooves on the sides of the sunglasses, the green energy swirls transferred onto them, and as the Headless Horse tried stomping its way through, she opened up the top of the dome and held her hooves up, unleashing a refined Energy Dom blast that scorched off the monster’s neck stump.
Shrieking and flailing its hooves, the Headless Horse turned and fled back into the forest, Vinyl dropping Enviro Dom to get a breather. She ran over to check the cliff, quickly seeing the vessel sitting in the bare branches of a tree growing off the edge over the rapidly flowing river fifty-some feet below. It looked close enough to reach… kinda.
She stood at the edge, reaching out as far as she could but to no avail. Taking a step to the side, she jumped her front hoof out onto the tree’s trunk, inching it forward to bit by bit get ever so closer to the vessel. Almost… got…
A shadow fell over her, and she looked back in time to see the Headless Horse stomping down on the sliver of ground she was standing on. It broke away beneath her hooves, and she swiped at but missed the vessel as she felt herself falling down down down towards the raging rapids below—
Vinyl jolted awake again from the sensation of falling. She quickly realized she was wearing her sunglasses, noting two burn spots on the far wall and seeing that the vessel had been knocked clean out of reach across the cave floor.
“Now that it knows there’s someone after it,” she said, taking the glasses off again, “it’ll probably book outta here and set up shop again Luna knows where. I’ve gotta catch it right now, or else.” She pulled the vessel back over with magic. “But how is this thing supposed to work—?” Setting the clock down a tad too hard against the stone ground caused its alarm bell to ding. Vinyl gasped. “Oh, duh! Now, how do I get back to sleep fast enough?” As soon as an idea came to her, she wished it hadn’t. “I’m gonna regret this tomorrow.”
Closing her eyes, she poured a stream of unfocused magic into her horn, forcing it to build it up and up until—pow!—and she slipped out of consciousness amidst the shower of magic sparks as her head fell down towards…
Her hooves landed on the forest floor back in the dreamscape. Her arrival evidently caught the again healed Headless Horse in front of her by surprise, as it immediately turned and galloped away.
“Get back here!” she shouted, giving chase. The trees quickly gave way to an open purple field, but Vinyl soon found herself falling farther and farther behind even as she tried running faster. Shaking her head, she brought herself to a stop as the Headless Horse shrank towards the horizon.
“Hold on a second,” she said. “If I’m gonna win, I’ve gotta make use of the environment. This is the dreamscape. And in dreams, if you’re chasing something, it always gets away, but if you’re running away… it always catches up.” She looked behind her. “Let’s see if I can use those to my advantage,” she said, setting off in the opposite direction as the Headless Horse.
Stray trees sped past her as she galloped to speeds only possible in dreams, the ground becoming far more sharply curved as the concept of distance fell in on itself. “Let’s hope this works. Hey, in a dream, that may be all that matters.”
As she continued to run, a familiar sound echoed into her ears. At the far horizon, the Headless Horse came into view, probably thinking it was still racing away from her. By trying to escape it, however, she’d forced the dream to make it catch up with her, even if it meant going around the long way.
“Small world!” she shouted up at it. It frantically skidded to a stop twenty feet from her and flailed its hooves, but before it could turn tail again, Vinyl stopped and held her hoof out at it—
Gesture Dom!
—locking it in place.
Voice Dom!
“You’re a nightmare,” Vinyl said, Tamer tone resonating, “a haunter of dreams. Well it’s time for a wakeup call! Dream’s over!” She pulled out and pointed the vessel at the Headless Horse again. “Of course…,” she said, raising a hoof, “it helps if you have an alarm.” And with that, she slammed her hoof onto the snooze button.
A spotlight beam shot out of the clock face, shining onto the Headless Horse as the alarm went off, sending shockwaves rippling across the dreamscape. The ripples began shaking the dreamscape apart around them, everything fading to white, as the Headless Horse helplessly flailed its hooves in the cone of light. Its silhouette body started fading transparent before it burst into a cloud of dust that was quickly sucked up along the light beam and into the clock face, which gave one final flash—
The alarm clock sat ringing until Vinyl’s hoof slammed onto the snooze button, lighting up the clock face and turning the alarm off. Vinyl peeked at the clock to see a faded image of the Headless Horse stamping its hooves on the inside of the face’s clear cover. With a smirk, she let go of snooze, letting the light go out and the image disappear.
She went to get up, but grabbed her head. “Oww…”
After spending the night resting off the headache from her “mind fireworks”, Vinyl again took to the Second Golden Horseshoe’s flying cloud, passing Ponyville and eventually finding her way to the River Styx, which was apparently a no-fly zone, as her cloud kept being pulled out of the sky and down to the ferry’s dock and toll booth every time she tried going around it.
When she finally reached the Gates of Tartarus a few bits poorer, Cerberus was already waiting for her with the vessel’s wooden box sitting open and still filled with a layer of steam.
“Is the prisoner secure?” Cerberus’ middle head asked.
Vinyl took out the vessel and hit snooze to light up the screen, the flailing Headless Horse’s image appearing again, before tossing it into the box with a clatter.
“It was itching at me the whole time, though,” she said. “If the Headless Horse was a dream monster, how come you didn’t let Princess Luna deal with it?” Cerberus stood stiff. “Unless…you didn’t want the Princesses knowing that it got out at all.”
“And now, they will never need to,” Cerberus replied, his right head nudging the box closed before picking it up. “Until I call again, my faithful Knight.”
“You expect to have more jailbreaks?”
Cerberus’ middle and left heads snarled loudly at Vinyl, but as she jumped back, the Golden Horseshoe still on her hoof triggered, and she vanished in a golden flash.
In her living room, a small golden arch traced itself in midair, and a wave of golden dust spread out from it into Vinyl. She blinked. After she realized where she was, she figured the Horseshoe had teleported her to a familiar safe place on reflex.
“Ah-ha!” she shouted at the wall now in front of her. “Beat ya to it!”
“Successful mission, may I presume?” asked That Cat, coming in to investigate the noise.
“Boy, have I got the story for you,” Vinyl said. “Too bad it’s not Nightmare Night yet, this woulda been perfect.”