Everything went white then black and then an explosion of colors appeared. After a minute or so, Vinyl “Class” Scratch opened her eyes to find herself in the middle of a square late at night, but it didn’t look even a little bit like home. Vinyl knew she’d been a fool. After all she’d learned about those secret magical mirrors in King Sombra’s castle, she’d continued her little “adventure” searching through his palace until she’d found the mysterious mirror.

But it wasn’t Vinyl fault… not completely.

The night could have gone perfectly. She and her dear friend Rocktavia — even if she could be loud and sometimes a bit too vulgar, Vinyl still found that mare the best friend she had — had been invited to play at Sombra’s castle in that night. The night was perfect; everypony was there to commemorate the fact that Celestia and Luna had been banished from the land for a thousand years. As the night drew on, Rocktavia got drunk as always — something that Vinyl found so unclassy for a lady, but this was Rocktavia we’re talking about after all — and made a bet with Vinyl, saying she was going to give her the newest electric violin.

And Vinyl accepted. She couldn’t resist, as she herself was running out of bits, while ponies prefered rock and pop. The king wasn’t going to pay her anything, so she accepted. After all, what could have gone wrong doing something for the love of music? Well, it turned out: everything.

Now there she was, with a little pain in the flank after falling miserably into that strange place, looking around, trying to keep calm and carry on. In fact she was panicking inside.

Vinyl blinked a few times, looking at the big buildings around her. “Ummm… this looks like… Ponyville,” Vinyl said to herself getting up and trotting around, remembering how Ponyville only had that name because a fool named it like that — in fact it was almost as big as Canterlot itself. But she knew this wasn’t Ponyville — this was a place she’d never seen before.

As the mare trotted along, trying to fix her mane with her magic and putting her monocle in the right place, Vinyl saw an old stallion sitting on a bench alone. Oh this good sir must be a help. She coughed as she trotted to the stallion. “Could you please tell me where am I, kind sir?”

The old pegasus stallion looked at her for a moment and started laughing, making Vinyl confused.

“What’s so funny?” Vinyl asked turning her head slightly to the side.

“Oh kid, did ya came from another world or somethin’?! This is Manehattan of course!” The old pony got up and gave her a little pat on the back. Vinyl raised an eyebrow. This can’t be happening…

“B-but Manehattan is a tiny village! Are you quite certain of what you—”

Vinyl was interrupted by the laugh coming from the old stallion once again. “Ya know what, kid? Ya should be a comedian!” he said pausing for a moment before walking away. But he turned back again and called to Vinyl, “Hey! Try to not mix up Griffonstone with the Crystal Empire!” Then the old pegasus stallion flew away with some difficulty, leaving Vinyl with a frown that went away in a few seconds to be replaced by a surprised expression.

“Oh no, that gentleman cannot be serious.” Vinyl looked back to see a big statue of somepony that looked like Celestia, but she was looked so good, so magnanimous, and so gentle — pretty different from the cold-hearted, unkind Celestia she knew. “Oh no… what have I…” Vinyl whispered to herself coming closer to the statue and seeing the mirror on the side of the statue’s plinth. Her eyes widened with a smile. “This is where I came from and that means that…” Vinyl placed her hoof on the mirror but was stunned when absolutely nothing happened. Her hoof didn’t pass through to the other side; there were no magical noises or lights; no magical results. “What?! But it was working just now and… how can this be possible? I—” She sighed sitting, remembering that Sombra said the mirror could stop working after a pony or any form had gone through it. That’s why nopony wanted to explore what was in the other side, because they might never see their home again.

What am I going to do now? Vinyl asked herself. But she had no idea whatsoever. Vinyl only knew one thing: she was trapped in this world and as if that wasn’t enough, it was late at night and the street felt deserted, the sound of a bell ringing telling her that it was already midnight.

Vinyl got up and started trotting to somewhere — she didn’t know where, but she couldn’t just stay there in the middle of the square for the whole night. A classy mare like her needed a far better place to stay than that.

Vinyl continued wandering around for a long time; half hour or so. Her hoofs were hurting; she was used to travelling in carriages. Even if she had no bits, looking like a true fancy and classy mare had some advantages. She found an upper class neighborhood, with mansions and sidewalks with symbols and different colors. This would be a good place to stay…

She stopped in front of a mansion where a treble clef topiary was proudly standing at the front of the garden. “Well this is quite an interesting decoration,” Vinyl said as she trotted to the door. “Ugh, finally! My hooves are breaking from all this trotting… why they don’t have such thing as carriages here?” She whispered to herself and coughed, before ringing the doorbell.

Meanwhile…

The doorbell rang five times. Octavia was shifting in the bed, trying to not get up. This had obviously failed. “O-okay, very well, you’ve interrupt the best dream I ever had about Vinyl, so it better be good,” Octavia whispered to nopony in particular and got up. She almost trailed herself downstairs, yawning and trying to not fall asleep on the way.

She checked on Vinyl, seeing the DJ was still sleeping like a stone on the couch after a wild night of working and continued her lazy way to the door.

“H-hello, what in…” Octavia opened the door with bleary eyes and an angry look on her face, but her vision became very clear when she saw something impossible. The cellist stood there, open mouthed. “Eh… you are—”

“Hi, my dear lady,” the mare began with a Trottingham accent that sounded like Octavia’s,.“I am Vinyl ‘Class’ Scratch and some… incidents happened. I really need to stay somewhere and I thought you, a classy looking mare, could give me some help. Can you?” Mirror Vinyl finished with a nervous smile, but Octavia had no answer. She stared at the mare, analyzing her. Vinyl rose an eyebrow. “Oh dear… are you alright?”

Octavia gulped finally finding some words. “Yes, I’m alright, I think. But… eh… I… you… You’re Vinyl? You mean… a DJ?”

“Oh, no! I’m a violinist!” Vinyl said with a smile.

Octavia winked. “Aaalright. So are you some crazy fan girl that is trying to act like Vinyl, but failed miserably. Because that’s what this looks like.”

“Fan girl? Vinyl? I am Vinyl ‘Class’ Scratch. You must be… oh no…” Vinyl remembered about what possibilities the mirror could have. A weird monkey universe with no magic, a feral universe where everypony is a beast, a universe where everypony had the opposite sex of their original, one that wasn’t been studied but that King Sombra’s scientists were still finding out about… gems or something, and a universe that was an alternative version of their own. Great, so I couldn’t have arrived in any other universe — even the gem one would’ve been better. “Well I can explain. It’s a magic problem. A problem with a mirror — it took me here. But I’m not from here, I am from another universe and the mirror isn’t working anymore, so I can’t simply go back to my home. And from what King Sombra, our kind king, said… if it stops working I can only go back after many moons.”

This can’t… oh yes, the princess already used a mirror for that. Oh well. Octavia sighed and thought for a moment about how things like this only ever happened to her. “Okay you… you can stay, but I’m going to have to to talk with Princess Twilight Sparkle tomorrow. Luckily she’s here to attend the Equestria Games which are taking place in Manehattan this year. Just head upstairs; there is a guest room there.” And for Luna’s sake please let me sleep after this…

“Oh, thank you so much! You’re such a kind mare, Octavia,” Mirror Vinyl said graciously and trotted straight upstairs, happy to finally have a place to sleep, and not even looking to the side to notice the other Vinyl sleeping there.

Octavia closed the door and turned around. She stared at the mare trotting upstairs and then at the DJ on the couch. “Well… this is weird.”

And escalated quickly.

Octavia kept saying to herself that it was only a dream — it couldn’t be real. But she was too tired to test out that theory. She only wanted to sleep. And she would be doing that right now if Mirror Vinyl’s snore hadn’t been so loud. Great…