//------------------------------// // Chapter 22 : Espionage // Story: Friends With a Spy // by cakestealer //------------------------------// Derpy walked out of the restroom and back into the arcade. She went to a fun looking game but Vinyl and Octavia came running up to her. “We couldn't find you anywhere!” Vinyl blurted out. “Where were you?” Octavia questioned. “I’ll tell you later.” Derpy replied, nervously looking around. “Why later?” Octavia pushed. Derpy nervously answered, “I’ll tell you later why I’m telling you later.” Then she put a coin into the machine to start playing. Vinyl and Octavia both walked away making nervous faces. They know that we’re not aloud to talk about the agency in public. But do they know that the reason I was gone had to do with the agency? It sure seemed that way based on the concerned looks on their faces. I really hope the agency doesn't make a big deal about two ponies trying to kill me in such a short amount of time. Now that I think about it I wonder how the agency is going to cover up the fight? It did leave a giant hole in that stall door after all. Derpy suddenly realized she hadn’t been paying attention to the game and had lost. That's how the cookie crumbles I guess. Let's see… any other fun games around here? Where did Vinyl and Octavia run off to? I better go find them. This place is more fun when you're with you’re friends. Derpy searched around the arcade for Octavia and Vinyl. After looking around in the dark for a few minutes she found them over at a ball game. Vinyl was tossing balls into a basket while Octavia sat and waited for her turn. “Hey guys, I thought it would be more fun to hang out together. Don't you think?” “Yeah, you can play this with us. It’s pretty simple, you just toss as many balls into the basket as you can in a minute” A loud sound went off behind Vinyl, signaling that it was Octavia’s turn. She went up, put a token in the machine, and started tossing the balls into the basket. Derpy watched Octavia. Each time she tossed a ball she looked at the basket and then almost expertly threw a ball perfectly into it. Once the loud noise went off again Derpy ran to the machine, remembered to put a token in, and then started throwing balls. That one was pretty close. Hey I’m pretty decent at this. She kept tossing the balls into and around the basket. Each time she missed she just shrugged it off. Once the game ended the scores came up. Octavia had 38, Derpy had 16, and Vinyl had 12. “Hey, I only lost because I was talking to Derpy!” Vinyl boasted. “Okay Vinyl, sure. What game do you think we should go play now? Did you see any fun games Derpy?” Octavia asked. “Yeah, there was this one where you have a plastic hammer that you hit parasprites with.” “Sounds cool, let's do it.” Vinyl said. Derpy led them back to the game. It was colored a bright green with parasprite decals all over it. Derpy put in a token and demonstrated how the game worked. Out came a parasprite from a hole in the machine. Derpy raised the hammer and whacked it as hard as she could! “Woah, chill out! You're gonna shatter the machine!” Vinyl yelled. “No it’s fine.” Derpy said as she slammed the plastic hammer into the machine once more. On it went for a whole minute. Slam! Crash! Boom! Once the game ended it buzzed and yelled out, “34!” Derpy smiled and held out the hammer. “Who wants to go next?” “I guess I’ll go.” Octavia decided. She grabbed the hammer steadily and put a coin in the machine. A parasprite peaked out of one of the holes in the machine and Octavia slammed the hammer down on it with an almost instant reaction. Another one came out and down the hammer fell once again. Octavia was practically jumping from side to side of the machine trying to hit the parasprites. “Woo!” Vinyl cheered. Wow she is really going ham! Who knew Octavia would be the master of the arcade? Once the game had finished Octavia was left panting heavily. She turned to Vinyl and Derpy and exclaimed, “That was really fun! Vinyl you were right about coming here. This place is awesome!” They continued on playing games for an hour or two until all of their tokens were gone. At the end they were left with a ton of tickets. “What do we buy with all of these?” Vinyl asked. “We can buy the whole store!” Octavia cheered. “I really doubt we can buy the whole store Octy.” “Let's do it anyway!” Derpy cried out. “That’s not how it works you guys.” Vinyl said. They went into the store and started looking around. Derpy noticed the stuffed animals of course, Octavia seemed drawn to a lava lamp, and Vinyl was suspiciously eyeing a speaker. A few other ponies were in the store. A group of fillies was pouring candy into bags. Gummy worms, gummy bears, sour looking chewy rings, and hard fruity candies. Octavia walked over to the lava lamp and saw that behind it were other color options of lava lamps. She looked at the price and saw it was eight hundred tickets. Vinyl looked at the price of the speaker which was one thousand five hundred tickets. Derpy walked over to the stuffed animals. Wow these sure look soft. I don’t think anypony would mind if I touched one. That is so soft! I need one of these things. How much are they? One thousand tickets for the medium ones and one thousand five hundred for the big ones. I wonder how many I could get? Let’s see we had seven thousand tickets, Vinyl and Octavia played too so we should definitely split it three ways. That’s like two thousand three hundred tickets each. I could get a big one and maybe something else. Derpy suddenly noticed some cute and soft looking keychains that were only 400 tickets each. She got two keychains and a giant stuffed rabbit. She brought them to the register. The stallion working the register looked at what she was buying. He sighed, took her tickets and started counting. Once they had left the arcade Derpy got to see what Vinyl and Octavia had purchased. Vinyl had gotten a speaker and lots of candy and Octavia had bought two lava lamps, one blue and one purple, and some candy. They walked home feeling like there arcade adventure was a successful one.