Vinyl Scratch continued to walk through the Jungle, searching for either Ditzy Doo or Octavia. She had been searching this island for what seemed to be around two hours. At first she thought it would be easy to find either of them due to her assigned item, a very detailed map of the island. It'll come in handy when Celestia announces which areas will be off limits.
Vinyl expected to find Octavia near the beach at first, but she scanned it up and down for at least an hour and didn't see a thing, and she didn't know Ditzy well enough to figure out where she might be.
She scanned the map, and deeply wished that she was better with directions. What's the point of getting a map if you can barely read it? She guessed that she was near some kind of cottages, and as she walked over her suspicions were confirmed.
The looked in awe at the row of cottages, there appeared to be five of them, making a circle. There was a cottage for each color of the rainbow: Red, orange, yellow, green and purple. She expected them all to be the same, since they surely looked it from the outside. She walked over to the yellow one(As it was the closest to her, right now) and walked up to the door, she put her ear to the door to see if anyone was hiding inside. If there was, and she entered, and they actually had a weapon, it would almost be a death sentence.
She listened, but didn't hear a thing coming from inside, it was dead silent. She checked the door handle, but only to notice that the door was locked. She cursed under her breathe. Now how was she going to get in?
Vinyl Scratch took this as a challenge.
She walked around the house, finding a small window. Lucky for her it looked just big enough for a mare to fit through, but not a stallion. She tried to open the window, but it refused the budge, causing her to curse under her breathe again. She picked up a rock and tossed it through the window. She could have swore she heard a high pitched scream coming from inside as the glass shattered and fell onto the floor. Vinyl Scratch took precautions. She looked through the window and didn't see a thing. Figuring the yelp must have been a figment of her imagination, she hoisted herself through the window, and landed face first on the floor, barely missing the glass. She picked herself off the ground and rubbed her head.
"Augh! Dammit!" She groaned. She was going to feel that in the morning. She looked around when her head stopped throbbing. It was a nice, cozy little cottage. It was fairly bright, and inside was a kitchen(Hopefully with more food, a living room with many comfy chairs and couches, and a very small bathroom. As Vinyl walked further into the house, she heard what sounded like a footstep come from the kitchen. Vinyl stopped dead in her tracks, and slowly made her way to the kitchen.
"Hello?" She called out, a little frightened.
Suddenly, a bright glint of metal shown under the table as an orange figure thrown itself at her, giving a weak war cry. Vinyl had sidestepped the attack at the last second as the metal object sliced through the air. Vinyl created enough room between her and her attacker to get a good look at her.
"Scootaloo?" Vinyl said in disbelief.
"You'll never take me alive!" She yelled, getting ready to charge. Vinyl held her hooves over her head in submission.
"Whoa whoa wait! I'm not going to hurt you!" Vinyl weakly assured. The filly surprisingly lowered her weapon, which ended up being a full sized sword. How the hell do I get a map, and this little filly gets a sword which she can barely hold!? Vinyl thought as she noticed that the filly struggled to keep the thing in her grasp.
"You're not?" She asked. Vinyl was surprised that Scootaloo was this gullible. If Vinyl had been someone else who was actually playing the game and they had pulled the "I'm not going to hurt you" charade, she'd be dead by now. Vinyl Scratch was not playing, however.
"No! I just came in here for shelter! Honest!" She said, trying to assure the filly to put down her weapon entirely. Even though she wasn't familiar with the weapon, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be able to stab someone with it.
"Good...sorry about that." Scootaloo said, throwing her weapon down on the ground, making a loud clanging sound. Vinyl put her hoof to her lips to tell Scootaloo to be quiet. She still wasn't sure if the rest of the houses were safe. If she randomly picked a house and there was Scootaloo in it, then there has to be ponies in the other houses. Well maybe.
"How did you even get in here?" Vinyl asked after looking at the door, with was bolted shut, making entry from either side improbable.
"Oh, well there was a tiny hole outside the cottage, probably due to termites or something." Scootaloo explained. Well that answered why she came into this cottage and not the others.
"Oh...I'm Vinyl Scratch." She introduced, the filly smiled at her. "When we noticed you were here, we wanted to help you." Vinyl explained. Scootaloo furrowed her brow.
"'We'?"
"Ditzy Doo and Octavia. We got separated from the beginning. I'm trying to find them, but I found you, which is equally as good. Octavia should be glad." Vinyl explained. She walked over to the couch and plopped herself down. Scootaloo went over to Vinyls bag and pulled out the map that she had.
"Nice..."
Vinyl leaned up and smirked at her. "Shut up, you can barely hold that sword of yours."
"So? I bet you can't even read this map."
Damn, she's good.
"Wanna switch?" Vinyl proposed. Scootaloo sighed.
"Fine. You'd probably get us lost in a heartbeat." Scootaloo replied, taking a look a the map.
"You're totally right about that." Vinyl said, flicking her blue mane out of her face. She thought about taking a nap, but given that everyone was trying to kill her, she decided it might not be the best time or place, so she sat back up.
"So, what's the plan?" Scootaloo asked, looking for guidance. Vinyl raised an eyebrow.
"Plan?"
Scootaloo face hoofed. "What are we gonna do now?"
"Oh," she stood up again and dramatically picked her up so they were looking eye to eye. Scootaloo tried to squirm out of the alabaster pony's grip the whole time, failing miserably. "Well probably to find Octavia and Ditzy of course! But first," She dropped Scootaloo on the floor.
"Hey!" Scootaloo said, rubbing her flank.
"We need to make breakfast!" Vinyl said, digging through her bag now. Scootaloo didn't know if being around this mare is a good idea, or a one way ticket to her untimely death. Scootaloo looked at a nearby clock, which read 7:15 AM. She had known that it was early, but was too freaked out earlier to do anything. Right when she left to ship she just ran blindingly into the jungle, and these cottages were the first thing she found.
Vinyl took out some bread out of her backpack and began to munch on it. "You would have though that since Celestia is behind this she would have packed us some decent food..." Vinyl said. The only other thing in there besides the load of bread was some fruits. How was this supposed to keep her going? She had the appetite of a rhino.
Scootaloo followed Vinyl's example, and began to eat some food out of her own bag as well, picking through the fruits that she didn't like and taking out an apple.
"Scoots," Vinyl asked, her mouth full of bread. "Why are you even here?" Vinyl asked curiously. She didn't expect a filly to have a criminal record.
"Don't call me 'Scoots'" Scootaloo replied. Taking another bite of her apple. "And I really don't want to talk about it..."
"Aw now ya got me even more curious!" Vinyl whined.
"I'm not telling." Scootaloo declared firmly. Vinyl just decided to accept it.
"Fine...be that way. But sooner or later, you're going to tell me." Vinyl said, smiling at little bit at the purple haired filly. Scootaloo politely smiled back. She wasn't too sure about this...
Suddenly, a knock at the door. Vinyl and Scootaloo stopped cold. She motioned to the filly to quiet down and to hide, which Scootaloo promptly did. Vinyl made her way to the door where she heard the knocking and stood there. Waiting to see if the visitor had left. But when they knocked again, Vinyl knew that the visitor knew that they were indeed there. Vinyl held her sword close to her as she spoke up.
"Who is it?"
"Special delivery!" A sharp, male voice said. At that moment, a green object flew through the window that Vinyl had come in through. She heard laughing and hoofsteps as the visitor trotted away. Vinyls eyes dilated at the sight of what the object was.
A grenade.
"Run, run, run!!" Vinyl screamed, literally picking up Scootaloo, who was still holding the map along with her apple in her mouth. She ran through the cottage and stood over the grenade itself to get them both through their only exit. She pulled Scootaloo off of her back and pushed her out the window head first, and when Vinyl made sure she was good to go, she hurled herself out of the building as well. When she hit the ground, she rustled Scootaloo to her feet.
"Go!" She screamed, running away and pretty much dragging Scootaloo with her. She only got a few feet away before the grenade exploded, turning the cottage into a flaming ball. Vinyl and Scootaloo got tossed 20 feet by the blast, and landed on the soft grass. Vinyl sat there for a moment, dazed. She felt a strange warmth on her head, and put he hoof to it. She pulled her hoof away to find blood on it. She had been cut, but it could have been worse. She looked over at Scootaloo, who was lying 10 feet away from her. Her eyes were open, but she laid there, unmoving. Too traumatized to move. Vinyl's eyes widened as the black pegasus from before walked over to her, sidestepping the parts of the grass that were still on fire. He picked up a sharp piece of wood from the ruins of the cottage and stood over the little filly, and raised it over his head.
"No! Don't!" Vinyl screamed, but she was unable to get up in her current state. The mohawked pegasus looked over at her surprised. Although he ignored her and raised the debris farther over his head. Scootaloo, no!
"Stop!" A voice came out of the smoke. Vinyl looked around, along with the black pegasus. The voice seemed familiar.
Ditzy Doo and Octavia emerged from the smoke, a little dirty and dusty.
"Leave that filly alone!" Ditzy stated. Octavia stood next to her. She knew that Ditzy was the best job for this. Ditzy took out a kunai.
"Ha! This filly'll be dead by the time that knife thing hits me!" Obviously this stallion was not the brightest, Vinyl thought. He quickly raised up the wood again and brought it down, but not before the Ditzy tossed the kunai, which became embedded in his neck. Scootaloo screamed loudly as the stallion fell ontop of her.
"Get him off me! He's crushing me!" Scootaloo said with the last of her break. Octavia ran over to her and threw the pegasus off of her, resulting in Scootaloo exhaling deeply.
"Thanks..." She said. Ditzy flew over to Vinyl and helped her off the ground.
"I see your eye doesn't tamper with your accuracy, hm?" Vinyl said, as she finally stood up. Ditzy Doo just smiled at her. Meanwhile, Scootaloo got off the ground and dusted herself off, she looked around, looking for the map. To everyone's amazement, the map remained unsoiled. It took a few minutes, but Vinyl managed to recover the sword as well. Though their food and water was now destroyed.
"Great..." Vinyl said. Octavia nudged her and pointed to her own bag.
"Don't worry, Ditzy and I will share our food." She smiled brightly.
"Great! I'm starved!"
Everyone sat down and ate, nearly eating half of their food supply, to their dismay. It seems that Ditzy and Octavia got better luck with their assigned items. Ditzy now only has two kunais(She refused to take back the one she used on Thunderlane) and Octavia got some sort of small royal shield.
"I got a map..." Vinyl stated, proudly. Octavia burst out laughing at her friends bad luck. Even the filly got a better item than her. Vinyl was not amused. "Shut up."
They finished eating and packed up the rest of their food, and quickly ran off, away from the wreckage, to look for more shelter and safety.
#18 Thunderlane, dead
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