Click-clack, clickity-clack, click-clack, clickity-clack, clack-click...

Her younger self was once again seated on the bench, hugging her cello case tight and staring at the mare in the blue hood. This time, though, she was biting back a smile as the other passenger recounted one of her club performances. The DJ was picking her teeth with a switchblade, just as before, but she was snuggled back into her garment rather than trying to intimidate the cellist.

"...so I threw him out on his ear. Doesn't matter how good the show is, jumping up on the stage while I'm midway through a set and trying to propose gettin' hitched ain't gonna fly." She snickered. "I mean, he was cute and all, and I know I'm amazing, but c'mon! Think before ya act!"

The grey ghost pressed a hoof into her face. As if you ever put more than a moment's thought into the hair-brained schemes you somehow coax me into...

Octavia leaned her head back against the window and giggled. "I must say, Miss Blue-hood, I have never had a colt offer me his hoof in matrimony because of my musical skill." Her heart sank a little at that, but only a very little.

"Yeah, 'sright? Sheesh." The DJ licked her teeth. "You have a really nice laugh, anypony ever tell you that? It's all kinds of elegant."

The cellist blinked, then leaned her head to the side. "Are you... trying to..."

But the pale mare was paying no attention. She rummaged around in her navy blue hooded sweatshirt, then somehow managed to produce a boom microphone from its depths. "Aha! Here," her horn glowed, and a curious device with two reels of magnetic tape levitated out of her garment as well. "Just wire this to this... and unh..." she tightened a screw with her switchblade, then used the knife to clear a jam in another part of the contraption. "Sha-zam!"

"What on Earth is that?" asked Octavia. "It looks like a bomb!"

"Nah, nah, this ain't a bomb. Back home, I have this huge one that might be a bomb... dunno, depends on if I miswired something." She blinked. "Right! Anyway," the unicorn's horn glowed, and she waved the boom microphone in Octavia's face. "I demand your laughter!"

The earth pony leaned her head away from the microphone. "Wh... why?"

"Why?" repeated the DJ. "For science, you monster!" She giggled. "Nah, nah, I'm gonna mix it into one of my songs. It'll sound great."

"You can do that? Just take any sound and... meld it into your music?" She hugged her cello case tight, thinking of its natural wood and rich tone. It was an instrument of creation, unlike this DJ's tools of duplication.

"Sure! I mean, not everything sounds good, but yeah. Any sound I can capture..." she patted the mechanical gizmo at her side, whose reels had begun to slowly spin in a rather ominous fashion. "I can bend to my will. Because I'm awesome."

Octavia looked down. "Hmm..." Her eyes drifted up. "What is it worth to you?"

The DJ raised an eyebrow. "Uh..." She rummaged in her hoodie. "I've got about three-fifty or so-"

"No. No, not money." Though she could certainly use it, that was not what she wanted. "What is the sound of my laughter worth to you?"

A moment passed while the pale mare squinted up at the ceiling and muttered under her breath. Then... "Okay, I can get you a VIP pass to the next Pegboard Cats show at-"

The grey mare coughed.

"A brand-new pair of headphones! I know a gal who-"

The grey mare coughed again. Next to her, the ghostly version of the earth pony giggled.

"What, you want the hoodie off my back, Miss Cello-case?" the unicorn started to tug at the navy-blue garment until the earth pony raised a hoof.

"No, Miss Blue-hood." The cellist shifted the weight of her case, then winked.

"Then what?"

"A name, perhaps?" The grey mare smiled. "And I shall throw in mine free of charge."

The DJ made a curious hissing sound, as though suddenly venting all the air in her lungs and forgetting that she needed to breathe in more, then glanced away. "Heeeeeh... Huum..." She looked back at the grey mare and her mouth moved, but no sound came. Abruptly she seemed to remember that she needed air to speak, and took aboard a mighty cargo of it. "I don't... know if that's a good idea."

"Why not? Are you wanted by the law?"

"Nah, nah... not right now anyway," she hurried onward before the grey mare could press that point. "I just... you might not... you promise not to freak out or anything?"

The grey mare nodded. "I promise." Next to her, the grey ghost rolled her eyes in wonderment that she had ever been so naive about trusting the vampire. And yet the older Octavia still leaned forward to listen closely, for she felt that last piece of understanding tickling at the base of her skull.

With a cough, the pale mare lowered the boom microphone. "It's..." As she looked at the floor, her head tilted low enough that the cellist could see her eyes over the rims of her purple shades. "I'm..."

"Vinyl," whispered the grey ghost, just as the DJ's mouth formed the words. "Vinyl Scratch."

"I'm Vinyl Scratch." The unicorn rubbed her front hooves together. "The Vinyl Scratch."

"And I," replied the cellist without missing a beat, "am Octavia." She smiled. "Your name is rather brash, but... I don't understand. Why were you afraid to tell it?"

"Because I... you..." She blinked, and then a small smile slowly spread across her muzzle. "I guess I got a reputation in certain circles... and it hurts as much as it helps."

A nasty reputation indeed, thought the grey ghost. Rich. Absurdly so, and talented enough in her trade to be the toast of any club she set hoof into. Famous, within the social circles of neon and night. She closed her eyes again, feeling as though there was a firestorm trapped inside her skull. It was a good pain.

"I have honestly never heard of you," Octavia said.

"And..." the pale mare smirked. "That's... nice. Bit of a kick in the ego, but nice. What about you? Do you have ponies judging you because of your rep too?"

The cellist ran a hoof through her mane as she tried to make sense of the DJ's words. Next to her, the ghost of herself had her hooves over her eyes and was moaning in pain.

Vinyl. Vinyl Scratch. A name. A face, a smile, a stranger in the night. Days, weeks, months, each one locked into her memory not because of meeting the pale mare on the train, but by the music she had played before taking the commuter rail home. Home. Rats, roaches, rot and a thin layer of padding atop a concrete floor.

"No... I truly am nopony," the cellist said quietly.

"Everypony's somepony," replied the DJ. "You're just not the somepony you want to be right now."

Not home. The ghost pulled her hooves from her eyes and stared into the unicorn's purple shades. A fire crackled in the lenses as if they were mirrors reflecting a lit hearth. Above the clouds, safe, warm... Where I could play, where I could fall asleep on the rug and feel... clean. Sanctuary. That was what this pale mare represented. Sanctuary. Octavia whispered softly, "Vinyl Scratch."

"Hey, cellist."

The grey ghost's head twitched to the side, searching for the source of the voice, and found a second pale mare on the opposite bench. This one had the same purple shades, but she wore a red hat and trenchcoat rather than a blue hooded sweatshirt. Most curiously of all she seemed to be just as transparent as the earth pony.

The pale ghost smiled wide, displaying a pair of long fangs, and put a front leg around the shoulders of her younger self, who seemed not to notice the monster at her side. Octavia stared in shock until finally instinct compelled her to blink. Before she could thwart the urge, her eyes were shut and back open again, but the mare in red was nowhere to be found.

The cellist stood and searched all around the traincar, but that pale ghost had well and truly vanished. Octavia bit her lip. "Vinyl?" she whispered, hoping to summon her again. "Vinyl Scratch?"

Nothing. She is... just a figment too. I am alone. The earth pony set her jaw. But I know who I am.

"Heh," the Vinyl wearing the blue sweatshirt chuckled at something Octavia's younger self had said. "I was right. You're neat. You know how to take care of yourself."

I do know how to take care of myself. I was trained by the best. By my Father, and... and... Something else, something out the window. The ghost pressed her nose against the glass and saw a large billboard, advertising a new kind of chocolate bar by the Bon Hadescream Corporation.

Octavia felt her lips moving as she remembered words that had been given to her by another. "The Corporation exists to fund the Organization, and the Organization exists to preserve the society that patronizes the Corporation. This is as ordained by The Charter, and by its words we carry on the creed of the ancient ones. You belong to the Organization now, Miss Octavia."

The cellist felt a strange need to adjust her business suit, but she was not wearing one. Whoever had told her these things had worn one, a suit neatly cut like those her Father had preferred, but the mare who had given those words wore it differently. She wore that suit to give joy, not to steal it. Her teachings were about liberty, and honor, and... and candy. Octavia scratched her head at that memory. Candy? I work for a candy company? As strange as it was, it seemed the most natural thing in the world.

"I guess it's a good thing I didn't shank you when we first met, eh?" asked the unicorn with a smile. The sheer insolence of the words drew Octavia's attention back to the figment of her memory.

The grey mare sitting on the bench felt a smile blossoming across her face, and laughter bubbling up from her barrel. "Yes, yes I rather think it fortunate that you did not." Octavia smiled. "Because then I would have had to bludgeon you with my case."

That pushed the pale mare into a fit of laughter as well, and the two of them continued until the train hisssed to a stop at a station. Vinyl sighed, then packed away her recording gear. The grey ghost watched the unicorn walk to the door, then took a deep breath. I have to take control. This is my mind. I am able to take care of myself. She rolled her shoulders and adjusted her bow-tie. But... I do so wish I had a friend here.

See you again, Octavia?" asked the pale unicorn with a hopeful smile.

"Most certainly, Vinyl Scratch," the earth pony replied with a polite wave of her hoof.

I need to get out of this illusion. The grey ghost bit her lip. Somehow she knew that Vinyl was waiting for her back in the real world, counting on her to succeed. There was something else too, something... she glanced back out the window again and saw another advertisement for candy bars. A... contract? No. Contracts are for Jägers. A mission. Something honorable, something worthy. Yes. She would escape this mental prison and complete her mission. The grey ghost sat down on the traincar next to her younger self. She was Octavia.

The unicorn in the blue sweatshirt shoved open the train door and came nose-to-nose with another of her breed, whose eyes glowed pure white. Vinyl raised an eyebrow. "Yo!"

"I'm going to rend you limb from limb!" roared the other unicorn as she tackled the pale mare and slammed her head against the floor until the surprised DJ lay still. Then her glowing eyes swung toward the grey ghost, and a wicked cackle began to bubble from her throat. The world slowly faded to black and white, all color seeming to ooze out the windows. Scoffing Song slowly stood up and crept toward the earth pony, giggling all the way.

Author's Notes:

Of course that "for science, you monster" is a Portal reference.

These "memory within a memory" chapters are really hard to write, but really fun. One of the most difficult parts is expressing which "versions" of Octavia and Vinyl were acting without being confusing, but that was the writing skill I wanted to develop.

The delay in this chapter was chiefly caused by other stuff soaking up all my writing time and leaving me exhausted when I sat down to write. This led to me feeling drained and pushing the story too hard. The first draft of this was pretty ugly. Once I stopped forcing myself and took my time, I found it much easier to work from the characters' points of view. This helped the final draft come together quite nicely!

Next chapter is mostly written already, and I hope to have it up within a week. The next few chapters will be shorter than normal, but more quickly released. I feel this is the best method since they are more action-focused. We'll see how it works!