Chapter 6
“Vinyl Scratch? Wake up!”
Vinyl’s eyes shot open, once again, seeing nothing and instilling a mild panic for a few seconds as she remembered why she saw nothing. You’d think that it was something she’d have gotten use to by now. Princess Luna was standing over her, shaking her awake.
“What? Princess Luna? What’s going on? Is it time for breakfast?” Vinyl asked, it felt far too early to be breakfast time.
“Vinyl, Willoughby is gone,” Luna said sadly. “He’s taken the artefact with him.”
“What?” Vinyl asked. She sat up and began tilting her head side to side, instinctively as if she was scanning the landscape for any sign of the kangaroo. Naturally, she came up short. “Why?” she asked again.
“He left a note,” Luna said, she cleared her throat and began to read it.
Princess Luna and Vinyl Scratch
Obviously, you’ve awoken and found me and your precious artefact missing. I’m sorry but I’m not going to just let you get rid of it. It’s too important for that. Don’t try to follow me, the minefield may have been marked as cleared, but that doesn’t mean that they got them all. I’ll be long gone by the time you see this. Don’t try to follow me! I mean it, I won’t have you two getting killed because I chose to do this. I’ve left you all the food I was carrying, you should be able to stretch it out long enough for a week if need be. I’ll come back for you after I’ve gotten everyone to remember.
-Please don’t follow me.
Benjamin Willoughby
“That idiot!” Vinyl called out in frustration. “Does he have any idea what he’s doing?!”
“He’s lonely, Vinyl Scratch, all of his friends are gone and don’t remember him,” Luna said. “Can you really blame him? Doesn’t it sound at all familiar to you?”
Vinyl looked down at the ground, guilt forming on her face. “Okay... yeah. Still! We can’t let him do it!”
“I agree, returning the memories of everyone in the world will be disastrous on so many levels,” Luna said. “But where would he go?”
“I remember him saying that there’s a military radar station near Karlu Karlu. If he was going to figure out how to get everyone’s memories back at once, he’d go there,” Vinyl said.
“Small problem: we don’t know how to get there,” Luna said. “Even if we did, we’re stuck in this mine field.”
“It’s never stopped me before!” Vinyl said, she rose to her hooves and began her horn began to glow. “I’m going to vibrate the ground, a couple metres in front of me while we walk, if we do run into any landmines, they’ll blow up before we get close enough for them to hurt us.”
Luna got up next to her; she unfolded her wing and wrapped it around the unicorn mare. “We’ll do it, together.”
The two mares began to walk along the course that Willoughby had taken them on the previous day, sweeping the land in front of them with sound waves as they walked. The constant magical use quickly exhausted the two mares, but they continued on their trek across the open countryside. Several hours of walking later, they finally reached white signs warning of the beginning of the minefield for those coming from the opposite direction. They had made it out of the danger zone, and once again, were relatively safe. Both of them were exhausted from the constant magical use, and decided that, even though they had only walked for two hours, that it would be best for them to make camp and recuperate. Unicorns weren’t meant to constantly use magic over any length of time, and as such, most unicorns’ stamina wasn’t the best.
They’d use this time to come up with a plan.
...
Several hours of rest later, they had decided to start walking, they reached the facility by nightfall. Luna had guided them up along the ridge above the facility, and bother of them were lying on the ground, they made themselves as small as possible to avoid being spotted.
Luna looked over and saw that Vinyl had pulled a pair of binoculars out from her saddlebag and was looking through them at the facility.
“Vinyl? You can’t see, why do you have binoculars?” Luna asked.
Vinyl did not reply at first, she continued to look forward, and then slowly turned her head towards the Princess of the Night. “Don’t screw with my method.”
“Give me those!” Luna said, and however begrudgingly Vinyl hoofed them over.
Luna examined the facility through the binoculars. The facility itself was one small building with several large radar dishes on the top of it. Oddly, the facility looked to be in disrepair, almost as if it had been abandoned, which would explain Willoughby’s choice to come here. Luna located a construction sign, reading it off, the ponies discovered that the facility was indeed abandoned, and scheduled for demolition. That was convenient.
Too convenient, but they didn’t have much of a choice, they had to go down there, and they had to stop Willoughby from carrying out his plan.
“Ready to go down there?” Luna asked her companion.
“Of course,” Vinyl said with a grin. “Operation: SUPERBALL is ago!”
Luna did a double take. “SUPERBALL?” She asked.
“SUPERBALL,” Vinyl repeated, her grin getting wider. “Problem?”
Luna sighed, but said nothing; the two mares rose from their hiding place and scampered down the hill towards the facility, moving as quickly as they could, the two mares ducked under a hole in the fence and continued to run head long towards the facilities main door. They must have tripped some kind of motion sensor, as alarms began to blare loudly all around them.
“Was SUPERBALL supposed to be sneaky?” Luna asked.
“Not really, Vinyl Scratch doesn’t do quiet!” Vinyl said with a grin. The two mares reached the door and slammed through it, bursting into the facilities interior, Luna bit down on Vinyl’s tail in order to stop her from running headlong into a wall.
“Didn’t I tell you ponies not to follow me?” the voice of Fusilier Willoughby came blaring over the loudspeakers.
“Did you expect us to listen?” Vinyl asked.
“No, I suppose not. Sorry Vinyl, but I’m not letting you ruin this for me! Not when I’m so close. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t come any deeper into the facility! I don’t want you to get hurt damn it!”
“You got a funny way of showing it Benny, leaving us alone in the middle of that minefield!” Vinyl said.
“STOP CALLING ME BENNY! You know I hate that name! Besides, you were never in any real danger. The minefield was cleared, and even if it hadn’t been, as long as you stuck to the ridge you’d have never stepped on one. Gryphons fly, so the minefield was for tanks. CSI leaves paths open for troops to pass through safely.”
“I’m going to come down there Willoughby, and when I get to you, I’m going to beat on your thick head until you realise just how stupid you’re being!” Vinyl said.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The loudspeakers shut off, from behind them; the two mares heard a large metal door drop from the ceiling, slamming down with tremendous force. Likewise, two bulkhead doors dropped on the hallways that lead out of the room. Vinyl Scratch and Princess Luna were trapped.
Vinyl went over to the bulkhead doors and felt them up. “We can melt through these doors. He’s got to know that.”
“That’s going to take time. Time that he can use to finish his work,” Luna said. “If we’re going to stop him, we’re going to need to find a way around them.”
Vinyl nodded in agreement. “Do you see any air vents in this room?”
Luna looked up, there was one that was on the far wall, leading in the same direction as the one they needed to go. “Yes.”
“Lift me up to it, I’m going in,” Vinyl said.
“Vinyl...” Luna began to protest, but was interrupted.
“I don’t need to be able to see to navigate through them. They’ll be dark anyway. Besides, Benny is my friend, and if anypony is going to be able to get him to stop, it’ll be me. It has to be me,” Vinyl said.
“All right,” Luna said. She spread her wings and went up to the air vent, and pulled the cover off. She picked Vinyl up and helped her into it.
“Would now be a bad time to mention I suffer from claustrophobia?” Vinyl asked with a grin, she was obviously kidding.
“Yes, yes it would. Now get in there before I change my mind!” Luna said with annoyance.
“Aye Aye princess!” Vinyl said, and with that, the mare disappeared into the air vents.