Realizing they had no idea where Sutrot Tower was, let alone how to get there, Vinyl and Octavia bolted out of the building and made their way to a nearby busy street where they were able to hail a taxi to follow Con Mane. The driver, a bulky stallion, raised an eyebrow when he heard their destination, but when Vinyl offered to pay him triple the usual fare to get them there quickly, he promptly began galloping down the street without another word said.

Their route took them up some of the tallest hills in San Franciscolt as they raced away from the docks and warehouses of Hayview into the hilly center of the city. The driver pulled the carriage up a winding road past wooded slopes and quiet neighborhoods perched on the hillsides overlooking the city. The two agents spotted Sutrot Tower long before they reached it, though it was only as they drew nearer that they realized it must be their destination. The structure was a huge, three-pronged radio antenna, purely utilitarian in design and painted in broad red and white stripes. The tower loomed over the surrounding landscape, taking advantage of its hilltop location to broadcast radio signals across the hilly city. It was also, they realized, an ideal spot to dock an airship, if only temporarily; just long enough to pick up somepony positioned at the top of the tower.

Sutrot Tower began to rise above them as they drew closer, passing through a dense grove of eucalyptus trees. Through the gaps in the trees they could see sweeping vistas of the city and the bay laid out below them, but the focus of the two agents was entirely on the tower. Finally, the driver stopped in front of a locked gate which marked the entrance to the property the tower sat on.

“So are you two radio technicians or something?” the driver asked, gesturing towards the tower.

“No, we’re musicians,” Vinyl said hurriedly as she and Octavia clambered out of the carriage. The DJ shoved a piece of paper into the stallion’s hooves. “Here, contact that pony, she’ll be able to pay you for the ride,” she explained before turning around and galloping after her friend towards the tower.

“But this is for an address in Canterlot! Hey! Wait a second!” the driver yelled, but the two agents paid him no mind, climbing over the fence and bolting across a large dirt lot positioned next to the tower and a pair of adjacent service buildings.

Vinyl looked around. “I don’t see them. Do you think we could have gotten here before-”

“DOWN!” Octavia suddenly yelled, shoving her friend out of the way of several incoming small, silvery canisters. Each exploded with a flash of energy as they hit the ground or let out a cloud of green-colored gas, like the one that put Octavia to sleep in the mansion. The two agents stumbled out of harm’s way, taking cover in a grove of trees on the side of the lot. From there, they could now see Con Mane and Golden Harvest standing at the base of the tower before the pair hurried into a small maintenance elevator in one of the tower’s three supporting piers. The elevator began to noisily climb slowly up to the top of the tower, with the two villains inside.

“Hang on, do you hear something?” Vinyl asked, holding up a hoof as her ears twitched. The two of them could hear a low humming sound, like that of propellers. Both of them glanced towards the south, alarmed to see a small airship approaching in the distance.

“That must be Con Mane’s ship!” Octavia said urgently. “We have to get up there and stop them!”

“No, wait!” Vinyl cried, holding her friend in place. “What if we don’t manage to beat them in time? We should focus on taking down the airship! That way we cut off their means of escape!”

“Can you do that?” the cellist asked, already sure of the answer.

“There’s got to be plenty of electronic equipment in that building,” Vinyl replied, pointing at the maintenance building next to the tower, which itself contained a number of antennas on the roof. “I’m sure I can whip together something.”

“Then you get to work on that,” Octavia commanded. “I’m going to deal with Mane.”

“Octy...are you sure?” the DJ asked hesitantly, looking at her with concern.

“If there was ever a moment to be certain, it is now,” Octavia said resolutely, narrowing her eyes as she looked up at the tower. “Besides, I want to do this. That stallion has been the bane of my existence these past few days.”

Vinyl nodded and pulled the grappling hook and a coil of rope out of her saddlebag while Octavia drew her sword, replacing the blade with the normal bow string. The white mare fastened one end of the rope to the grappling hook before giving it to her friend, who took and pulled it tight against the string of her bow, aiming carefully at a spot high up near the top of the tower. After a couple of seconds she released the bow and let the hook fly. It sailed through the air, arcing slightly as it neared the top before landing across a horizontal beam, falling for a second before catching tight onto the beam.

Vinyl placed her horn against the rope, which began to glow with the same light blue aura of her horn as she cast a bring-to-life spell. Octavia tied the rope around her, wrapping one section around her forehooves in preparation of what was about to happen next.

The DJ looked up at the cellist. “Good luck,” she offered.

“And the same to you,” Octavia returned with a nod.

Vinyl tugged down hard on the rope and suddenly it snapped back upwards, rapidly launching Octavia into the air as the rope, now with a mind of its own and obeying its master’s command, began wrapping itself around the grappling hook at the top, quickly pulling the grey mare to the top of the tower.

“These little gadgets often come in handy,” Con Mane commented with a smirk, holding another one of his gas canisters in his hoof. “My own design, of course,” he added.

“You are incorrigible,” Golden Harvest said, batting her eyelashes at the stallion.

“I don’t know the meaning of the word,” Con Mane replied. Both of them laughed at his remark. They were standing together in the small two-pony elevator, now about mid-way up the tower.

“Hold on, look,” the orange mare said, pointing down at the base of the tower. From their vantage point they could see Vinyl dart into the maintenance building. “Agent Scratch is down there, but I don’t see Agent Octavia...did they split up?” she asked in a concerned tone.

“Frankly, I’m still wondering how they were able to follow us,” Con Mane muttered.

Golden Harvest looked out at the approaching airship. “It’s still too far out. The agents might stop us before it gets here!”

“I’m sure we will escape,” the stallion offered, his tone casual and unperturbed.

“I don’t want to take that chance,” the mare replied. “These two are quite tenacious.” The elevator stopped, allowing Con Mane to slide open the door and step out onto the topmost level, but Golden Harvest remained inside. “I will see to Agent Scratch. If she is on her own, I will be able to take her.”

“A wise choice, darling,” the stallion answered, nodding. “You go then, and I will see to Ms. Octavia.”

Golden Harvest nodded, but then remained in place for a moment. “Err...aren’t you getting back in?” she asked awkwardly, indicating the elevator.

“I don’t need to. Ms. Octavia will come to me here,” Con Mane said with a sly grin. “After all, mares do seem to find me irresistible,” he added with a wink, causing Golden Harvest to giggle bashfully. “Though I am curious, how do you intend to take care of Ms. Scratch?”

“I have my ways,” the orange mare answered, pulling a thin object out of a tuft of mane behind her ear. At first, Con Mane thought it was a mane stick, but he quickly realized it was something far more sinister. Golden Harvest slid the elevator door close and began descending towards the ground again.

“I do so love a mare of intrigue,” the stallion thought to himself, straightening his bowtie.

Vinyl rushed around the cramped control room, frantically trying to locate anything for what she had in mind, which she was still trying to figure out. “Uh...let’s see...” she muttered to herself, looking over a wall covered in analog equipment. “A frequency jammer? No, all that would do is knock out their navigational aids. Come on, think!” she grumbled, smacking her forehead. “What would bring down a whole airship?”

Suddenly there was a yell of fury coming from behind Vinyl, causing the DJ to turn around in alarm. Golden Harvest was charging at the agent with a dagger clenched in her teeth, aimed so as to pierce the white mare’s flesh. Vinyl barely managed to dive out of the way in time, using her magic to yank a nearby piece of radio equipment out of the wall and levitate it in front of her as a shield. Golden Harvest stabbed it, her dagger easily piercing the machine. For a brief second the blade remained in place, its tip mere inches from Vinyl’s face, and it was then that she noticed something about it: it was gleaming.

Golden Harvest wrenched the blade out of the machine before she caught Vinyl staring at it. “Like it?” she asked, grinning with the handle of the dagger still in her mouth. “I like to call it...Goldstinger.”

“...Gold?” Vinyl muttered, looking utterly perplexed.

“Yes!” the orange mare cried triumphantly, holding the dagger so as to show off as much of it as possible. “Made from solid, 24-‘carrot’ gold!”

Vinyl was quiet for a moment, her face not betraying any emotion. After a long, awkward silence, she slowly lifted a hoof to push her goggles up to her forehead and give Golden Harvest the most withering look the orange mare had ever seen.

“Really? That’s the best you could come up with?” Vinyl said, her tone incredulous.

“What are you talking about?” Golden Harvest replied, sounding confused and not a little insulted. “It’s a family heirloom! I inherited it from my own mother!”

“Uh-huh. So do bad puns also get passed down in the family?” the DJ asked mockingly.

“Shut up!” the orange mare snarled, lifting her dagger again. “Nopony insults the Harvest family and gets away with it!” She stabbed at Vinyl once more, forcing the agent to retreat swiftly, backing up against one corner of the cramped room.

Octavia pulled herself up to the topmost level, grunting from the effort. The highest level of Sutrot Tower consisted of three truss structures, painted red and interlinked between the three support pillars to form a triangle. Above her, the three antennas of the tower pierced into the air, each held in place by a web of cables connected to the trusses. Through the gaps between the steel beams, the agent could make out the shapes of houses and trees and the curving lines of roads winding down the hill far below. The whole city was laid out before her, from the skyline of downtown and the docks lining the shoreline of the bay to the quiet neighborhoods covering every hill in San Franciscolt. A brisk, chilly wind blew in from the expanse of ocean to the west, pushing a fogbank towards the bay that obscured most of the Galloping Gait, with only the top of the two bridge towers visible over the clouds.

Octavia stood up on the deck, her body tensed as she looked around cautiously. There was no sound aside from the occasional gust of wind and the low electric buzz of the radio antennas. Other than the distant form of the slowly approaching airship, which had turned down its engines to low power as it approached the tower, nothing seemed to move. Everything seemed calm, which made the hairs on the back of Octavia’s neck stand on end. She could hear her own rapid heartbeat as she took a few reluctant steps down the truss.

Suddenly a large form swung down from one of the steel beams directly overhead, revealing itself to be Con Mane. Octavia didn’t have enough time to dodge, taking the stallion’s kick to the chest and tumbling backwards. The villain dropped down onto the metal grating of the floor, activating the retractable dagger in his hoof device before stepping forward to stab the agent. The grey mare ducked and did a quick backflip out of the way, landing on all fours before standing up on her hind legs and drawing her sword. She held it in front of her as the two ponies stood still, each staring at the other in a thick silence.

“Let’s try this over again,” Octavia said evenly, her tone cold and determined.

“Yes, let’s,” Con Mane replied smoothly. “You find us a nice hotel room and I’ll provide the champagne.”

The agent lunged at the stallion, swinging her sword at his head. He quickly countered, raising his dagger to intercept the sword and wrenching it down while lashing out with his other forehoof. It came into contact with her jaw, knocking her backwards. She barely had enough time to lift her bow as Con Mane barreled down on her, standing on his hindlegs and holding her sword down with his dagger by sheer force. He was almost on top of her, their faces mere inches from each other between the two crossed blades.

“You know, I love it when a mare plays hard-to-get,” the stallion said, cocking his eyebrows and offering her a sly grin.

Octavia snarled and kicked at the stallion with one of her hindlegs, kneeing him firmly in the crotch. Con Mane bellowed in pain, falling back off of the mare and lowering his guard. The agent spun around, planting her forehooves on the floor and kicking out with her hindlegs, bucking the stallion square in the face. The force of the impact sent Con Mane flying, landing painfully on the metal grating of the floor and rolling over a couple of times before stopping. He staggered to his hooves, looking up at Octavia as he lifted himself off the floor. The stallion’s nose was bleeding profusely, staining the front of his suit with spots of red, and his face had lost its normal cocksure smirk, changing to an expression of fury.

With a guttural roar he launched himself at the grey mare, swinging his dagger forcefully. It collided with Octavia’s sword, and for a moment both stood there, balancing on their hindlegs with both forehooves clenched on their respective weapons, teeth gritted and gazes boring into each other’s eyes. Con Mane withdrew his dagger for a second before swinging in at the agent’s head, forcing her to duck. She swung her sword furiously, slicing up, across and down, with the stallion dodging each of her attacks. Their weapons clanged against each other, each pony trying to gain ground over the other with neither succeeding.

Vinyl hurled another piece of radio equipment across the room, but Golden Harvest proved too quick to be struck. Even when the agent’s aim was true, the orange mare was very skilled with her dagger, stabbing a few of these makeshift projectiles to hold them in place before they could hit her. With each move, Golden Harvest pushed Vinyl back towards the rear of the small control room, cutting off any escape route.

The agent’s mind raced as she desperately tried to avoid the villain’s blade. “I’m in a room full of equipment, so why can’t I think of anything?!” she thought furiously, eyeing the gold dagger as it sliced through the air towards her. Vinyl took another step back, feeling her flank bump against the wall. Golden Harvest advanced, stabbing her blade at the agent. Vinyl dodged to the side, but the villain stopped her stab short and swiped at the agent instead, catching Vinyl off-guard. The blade struck, leaving a deep cut across Vinyl’s cheek. She yelped in pain, punching out with one of her forehooves and catching Golden Harvest in the chest, but another swipe from the orange mare sent Vinyl stumbling back into a corner of the room, her back pressed up against a utility box set on the wall.

Golden Harvest grinned savagely, the handle of her gold dagger still clenched between her teeth. Vinyl gulped as her gaze darted around the room, looking for anything she could use to defend herself. The orange mare lunged forward, the tip of her blade aimed directly at Vinyl’s head. The agent ducked just in time, hearing the sickening crunch of metal against metal before there was a sudden burst of light and a harsh buzzing sound.

The gold blade had pierced the utility box behind the agent, and before Golden Harvest could let go of the handle electricity had poured through the blade, delivering a powerful shock to the orange mare. She promptly collapsed on the floor, lying completely still.

Vinyl remained silent for a moment, dumbfounded by what had just happened and actually fearful that Golden Harvest was dead. The villain remained still and didn’t seem to be breathing. Vinyl slowly reached a hoof towards the orange mare’s neck, pressing against a spot just under the chin. She was soon enormously relieved to feel a pulse there. That relief was short-lived however, as her hoof received a shock of static electricity as it brushed against her bushy mane.

“Ow! Mother...” Vinyl grumbled, the curse dying in her throat. At that moment, however, she was suddenly struck by an idea. She looked up at the golden blade hanging in place over her, still embedded in the utility box. A grin spread across her face as a plan took hold in her mind.

Octavia ducked around swipe of Con Mane’s dagger and tried to take advantage of her position to strike a decisive blow up at him, but the stallion proved too quick, slamming his blade against the mare’s and wrestling it down. Both of them had scratches or - in the case of Con Mane - nicks in their clothing from where a blade had successfully found its mark, but the agent was losing this fight. Octavia may have been the more agile of the two, but Mane had muscle and height on his side and knew how to use it. The grey mare was already feeling worn from this fight, just trying to hold off a more powerful foe. She needed to find an opening and fast.

“I do love your sword, by the way,” Con Mane commented, his gaze locked onto Octavia’s eyes. “A musical bow. Adds a delightful touch of class.”

What happened next occurred almost too quickly for Octavia to follow. Con Mane’s dagger, which the agent had been wrestling against with her own sword, suddenly vanished, retracting back into the stallion’s watch. Now with nothing resisting her, she fell forward. Before she could recover and swipe at the now unarmed stallion, Mane sidestepped, grasping the leg holding her sword in one forehoof while swinging the other forcefully into Octavia’s stomach.

The agent cried out in pain, reeling from the blow and dropping her sword on the floor. She struggled to pull herself together and strike back, but the stallion shoved her violently against a steel beam. Her back collided against the beam before she collapsed onto the floor with the wind knocked out of her. Every muscle in her body ached as she struggled to catch her breath, but Con Mane kicked her in the side, sending her rolling painfully across the metal grating. The stallion roared with fury, kicking her again, this time with her ribs taking the force of the impact. Octavia coughed violently, desperately trying to rise to her hooves, but one final punch sent her down to the floor, where she lay sprawled on the ground, bruised and battered.

Octavia looked up to see her sword lying a couple of lengths away before Con Mane reared up and brought his forehooves down on it, stamping on the wooden portion that held the blade in place. It promptly broke, with a crack running down the length of the handle and a good chunk of it now in splintery fragments. The blade fell out, no longer held in place by the wood frame. Con Mane stood there, panting heavily for a second as he looked down at the broken sword before turning his gaze up to Octavia. His nose was still bleeding and his suit was ragged and blood-stained, but it was the villain’s eyes that truly reflected the fury and madness within. After a moment, however, his expression returned to its normal calm and he straightened his bowtie.

With a casual flick, Con Mane swept the broken remnants of the sword tumbling off the tower, and Octavia watched them fall out of sight. She glanced up from where they fell as her vision blurred and her mind became entranced by the view. Something seemed off though, and she became dimly aware that the Galloping Gait Bridge had vanished. It took her a moment to realize that it wasn’t gone, it was merely hidden from view in the fog below. Somewhere in her mind it occurred to her that these were strange details to be among her final thoughts, but she didn’t really care. Tears welled in her eyes as she felt herself losing consciousness. “At least I chose a spectacular location for my death,” a voice in her head spoke.

“You are finished, my dear.” Con Mane took a step towards Octavia, snapping her out of her thoughts.

“Do you expect me to give in?” Octavia muttered, fighting through the haze in her head. She was determined not to show weakness in her last moments.

“No, Ms. Octavia.” He lifted his forehoof as his dagger extended out of his watch, its metal blade gleaming in the sunlight. “I expect you to die.”

Con Mane raised the dagger over his head, preparing to strike the final blow. Octavia braced herself before pausing when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Just as the stallion began to bring his blade down towards the agent, something swung around from behind him and struck the dagger, resulting in a bright flash and a harsh buzzing sound. Con Mane screamed in pain, stumbling to his side and falling to his knees as electricity coursed through his blade, causing sparks to emit from his watch and delivering painful shocks to his forehoof. The stallion struggled to remove his device, managing to get it off quickly but not before his leg went numb from the pain. A burn mark now indicated where the watch had been worn.

Con Mane looked up to see Vinyl Scratch standing nearby with a peculiar device held aloft in the blue aura of her magic. It was essentially a metal stick, but at the end were two conductors connected by an open current of electricity. Vinyl levitated it in front of her, glaring down at the villain.

“I’m only going to say this once,” she growled, waving the weapon threateningly. “Get away from her.”

Con Mane’s eyes narrowed. “As you wish,” he muttered through gritted teeth before leaping to his hooves as his horn began to glow. A pale yellow aura wrapped around the agent’s weapon. Vinyl, taken aback, wrestled for control over her stick, swinging it at the stallion and forcing him to slide out of the way. The villain was grunting with every movement and kept his teeth firmly gritted, but his eyes burned with fury as rage took hold of his mind. The agent swung her weapon wildly, desperately trying to hit the stallion, but his magical pull on the device prevented her from striking a blow.

Suddenly a shadow passed over the pair and a startled Vinyl glanced up to see the airship closing in on the tower, with the front tip of the balloon nearly touching the antennas above them. A pair of pegasi jumped out of the gondola with ropes clenched between their teeth, preparing to tie the airship to the tower to dock it.

It was just the distraction Con Mane was hoping for. Concentrating, he took a firm hold of Vinyl’s weapon with his magic, still held aloft in mid-air between them. Just as Vinyl turned back to face him, the stallion thrust the stick forward, catching the agent with the butt of the handle and knocking her on her back. The villain released his magical grip on her weapon and it clattered on the floor. Vinyl moved to get up, but Con Mane leapt onto her, pinning her on her back with a hoof pressed against her chest as her head dangled over the edge. The agent tried to call on her magic, but saw Con Mane’s hoof closing in before she could cast a spell.

“GET...OUT...OF MY...CITY!!!” he bellowed, smashing a forehoof into Vinyl’s face with every punctuation. He panted, lifting his bleeding hoof to look down at the mare’s face. She was panting too, squinting as she looked up at him through her broken goggles. One of the lenses had completely shattered while the other was severely cracked. Her face was covered in bruises and the red of Vinyl’s visible eye matched the blood that now trickled from her nose and the small cuts around her eye and on her cheek. Con Mane gritted his teeth, raising his hoof to strike the final blow.

A pair of grey hooves suddenly wrapped around his throat and his raised hoof, bending his foreleg back painfully far. The stallion bellowed in pain as Octavia’s head appeared from behind Con Mane.

“It’s not your city anymore!” she yelled, suddenly letting go of the stallion. He wheeled around, but Octavia was ready. She planted her forehooves on the floor, putting every last bit of her strength into one mighty buck. Her rear hooves connected with his chin, delivering a powerful uppercut that lifted the stallion of his hooves and into the air. He flew backwards, hitting the edge of the tower before tumbling out of sight.

Octavia collapsed onto her stomach, panting heavily and too exhausted to rise to her hooves. Vinyl pulled herself up, carefully extracting her goggles as shards of the shattered lens fell onto the floor. “Hey Octy,” she breathed, looking at her friend with concern. “You okay?” The grey mare could only nod weakly, but it was enough to bring a small grin to Vinyl’s face.

“We did it,” the white mare muttered, glancing over the edge. “We-” She stopped as she saw a trio of ponies suddenly rise out of the air, heading for the gondola of the airship. The two pegasi crew members of the airship had apparently caught Con Mane as he fell and were now carrying him to safety. “OH, COME ON!” Vinyl hollered, raising her forehooves in frustration.

The three ponies entered the gondola and closed the hatch behind them as the airship’s engines roared to life and the craft began to turn away from the tower. Vinyl’s eyes narrowed. “Oh no, you are not getting away that easily.”

She rose to her hooves and spotted her weapon laying nearby, still crackling with electricity. Vinyl grasped it with her magic, holding it aloft as she aimed for a suitable spot on the surface of the airship’s balloon. “Like hitting the side of a barn,” she thought smugly, pulling back for a moment before flinging the weapon off the tower. The agent watched for a moment as it sailed through the air before embedding itself, conductor end first, into the fabric of the balloon.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, just as the airship began pulling away in earnest from the tower, flames sprouted from where Vinyl’s weapon had struck, ignited by the electrical sparks of the device. The fire grew, moving upward and burning away at the canvas as helium began to leak out of the airship. The flames crept towards the top of the balloon as the airship entered an uncontrolled descent as it lost the gas keeping it aloft. Within a minute, the airship resembled a ball of fire hurtling towards the ground. It collided with the forested hillside below the tower, smashing into the ground as a great fireball erupted from the downed ship.

Vinyl collapsed on her haunches, watching the sight for a moment before glancing at Octavia. The grey mare was unconscious, her energy spent after the fight. Vinyl turned back to the view below. Already, she could hear sirens as fire engines raced to the scene. She glanced over at the view of San Franciscolt. Fog was drifting in over the bay, and as the clouds moved inland and passed across the Galloping Gait, she could make out the top of the two towers of the bridge. As she watched, a cloud passed out of the way, revealing the long span of the bridge. The distant rumble of a fog horn emanated from somewhere in the fogbank. Vinyl inhaled deeply, her body relaxing as she sat down beside Octavia and took in the view, feeling relief in the wake of their victory.

“...And if you’re just tuning in to our live, continuing coverage, an airship crashed this morning near Sutrot Tower. Fortunately, no homes or ponies on the ground were endangered, but several ponies onboard were killed, including the owner of the airship, Mr. Constantine Mane, whose body was identified by police. Mane is most well known as the proprietor of the Sugar Daddies baked goods company. Now, reports are sketchy, but we’re hearing from police officials that the airship crash may be linked with some sort of battle at a Hayview warehouse, which resulted in the arrest of noted bakers Gustave LeGrand and Mulia Mild. With me now to talk about this is Amy Goodmare; now Amy, what do you make of these reports?”

“Well, as you said, these reports are still sketchy and there’s a lot of speculation going on, so we’re still waiting on official word from the police. But what we can say for sure-”

“Yeah, that’s enough of that,” Vinyl said, switching off her radio. She and Octavia were sitting on a park bench on the northern shore of San Franciscolt. Behind them was a marshy field that was home to an assortment of wetland critters while in front of them was the bay. To their right, a marina stretched along the shoreline against the backdrop of the San Franciscolt skyline, while to their left sat the breathtaking sight of the Galloping Gait Bridge, leaping across the bay to the hilly terrain of the land across the bay. Ships would pass by every so often, ranging from little ferries crammed full of tourists taking pictures of the bridge to huge cargo ships steaming in from the ocean beyond. Above them, pegasi weather teams carried off the last remnants of the fogbank that had blown in from the sea, pushing the clouds along to the valleys inland. It was a serene sight and a much-needed moment of peace after everything the pair had gone through.

Vinyl looked up at her friend, who returned her glance. Both ponies were wearing numerous bandages, though they were arranged quite differently for each mare. Vinyl’s injuries were mostly confined to her face, so she had a few small adhesive bandages where she had suffered cuts and in place of her goggles she was wearing an eyepatch over one eye. Octavia, on the other hoof, had taken some much stronger blows and was wearing bandage wrappings around her ribs and each of her legs. Her posture and gait were stiffer than usual and she winced in pain every now and then.

“So, that’s that then, huh?” Vinyl commented.

“I suppose,” Octavia replied, sounding a little downcast. “Still, I didn’t want to kill him. It would have been much preferable to bring him to justice, if just to see that idiotic smirk of his wiped off his face,” she added bitterly.

“Sorry,” the DJ mumbled. The grey mare turned towards her with a sympathetic look.

“You have no need to be sorry. You did what was required of you.”

“Yeah, but...I could have been so much better! I came up the tower to rescue you, and instead you wound up rescuing me. Twice actually, because you had to break me out of the warehouse.”

“Vinyl, we’re a team-” Octavia began, but her friend cut her off.

“And now here I killed our main target! Sometimes I think I’m not cut out for this job.” The two ponies fell silent for a moment. The cellist continued to look at her friend while Vinyl stared out at the water.

“You know that song I was talking about earlier? ...I think I want to work on that some more,” she said, looking back at Octavia now. “I could really make a name for myself with my music.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself now.” The cellist chuckled.

“I know, I know,” Vinyl replied, rolling her eyes. “Still, if I do pull this off, I could finally be a real DJ! I can live my dream, baby!”

Octavia was quiet for a moment. “You know, if you do become popular, you’re not going to be able to be a secret agent. Celebrities don’t make for the most effective spies.”

“I know,” the white mare said, looking down at her hooves. “That’s why I wanted you to be the first to know.”

The two fell silent again. The only sounds were the call of seagulls flying over the water and the soft, lapping sounds of waves rolling on the little beach before them.

“You know, in all of the excitement I never stopped to realize just how beautiful it is here,” Octavia commented, looking across the bay.

As they sat on the bench, they heard the beat of hooves on the dirt trail grow louder as a jogger approached, wearing a tracksuit and headphones which connected to a small radio strapped to her side. She paid the two agents no mind, staring straight ahead as she ran past. As she did, however, a small notebook fell out of a pocket of her tracksuit, landing on the ground in front of the two agents. The jogger continued on, unawares.

“Excuse me, Miss!” Octavia called out, getting off the bench. “I think you dropped something!” The jogger continued running, unable to hear the grey mare through her headphones. “Excuse me, you-” Octavia stopped as she looked down at the notebook, which was decorated with the royal seal of Equestria. She flipped it open and began reading it.

“Looks like you’ll have to wait on that hit single, Vinyl.” Octavia hoofed the book over to her friend, who read over the page with a raised eyebrow. The grey mare sat down on the bench again as Vinyl finished reading.

“Well, that sounds interesting,” the white mare mused. “Back in Canterlot, huh?” Vinyl tore the page out of the notebook, placing the book into her saddlebag before she ripped the piece of paper in half a few times, crumpled it into a ball and flung it into the water. The two watched it float for a second before it sunk beneath the waves.

“Hey, we still got some time to kill before we have to head back to Canterlot,” Vinyl pointed out. “Want to do a little sightseeing?”

“I think I’d rather enjoy that,” the cellist answered, smiling.

“Ooh, we should go check out the local clubs! I don’t know about you, but I could really use a few drinks right about now. Plus I want to show off this sweet patch,” she added, tapping her eyepatch.

“Vinyl, I really don’t-”

“And if you come with me, I’ll go do something you want to do,” the white mare quickly added, grinning.

Octavia opened her mouth, but paused and considered this offer for a few seconds. “Very well then. If you will accompany me to the orchestra, I will go to these clubs of yours.”

Vinyl’s face broke out into a broad smile. She wrapped a hoof around the grey mare’s shoulders. “Deal.”