Chapter 7
Vinyl Scratch made her way through the air ducts, realising quickly that she had no idea where she was going. Even if she did manage to find her way, how was she going to know which one was the right way?
You’re just chock full of brilliant ideas today Vinyl Scratch.
Vinyl stopped, and listened, drowning out the background noise and listening for anything that she could use to help guide the way. She heard Willoughby’s voice, while she couldn’t make out the words, she continued onwards, following the sound of the kangaroo’s voice to its point of origin.
“Entry 15... Vinyl Scratch and Princess Luna followed me here, guess it shouldn’t be any big surprise, They don’t like what I’m doing... but I’ve got it figured out, I’m so close now! The unique properties of the artefact were oddly adaptive to our radio technology. Put it in as part of a radio circuit. It’ll broadcast the radiation over our radio frequencies... whoever made this thing really knew what they were doing...”
Vinyl knew she was getting close, now that he could hear Willoughby speaking clearly; it was only a matter of time before she found the right duct.
“You just went past it Vinyl Scratch,” Willoughby said through the air duct.
Sure enough, she backed up and pushed open the duct, crawling out of it and into the room that Willoughby was working in.
“That was nice of you, for someone who wants to bring back all the bad memories,” Vinyl said. “Things better forgotten!”
“You think what you’re doing is right. So do I,” Willoughby said. “You’re also at a severe disadvantage. I may be many things Vinyl, but I’m all for a fair fight.”
“Ben, please. As a friend I’m asking you to stop,” Vinyl said.
“No,” Willoughby said plainly. “I’m sorry Vinyl, but I can’t do that. I don’t have anybody! Everyone has forgotten me! Even you, my last friend left in the world is going to leave for Equestria after you get done with the artefact... I’m not going to be alone. Not again.”
“Ben...”
“STOP. Don’t call me Ben,” Willoughby said, Vinyl heard him pick up the artefact.
She frowned. “I’m sorry,” she enveloped her magic around the artefact, knowing full well what would happen when she did. Lightning arced out of the statue, conducting with both of them. Willoughby flew backwards, dropping the artefact on the ground, smashing it to pieces.
Vinyl too, was tossed backwards. She hit her head hard on the concrete wall and landed on the floor with a hard thump!
“Always... with the head...” Vinyl said as she passed out.
...
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Vinyl Scratch opened her eyes and found that she was lying in the middle of a large crater. She looked up at the open, blue sky and blinked. She noticed two things; first off, her goggles were missing off her head, as the sky was actually blue, and not the purplish tint that her goggles made the world look like.
The second thing that she noticed was that she could actually see it. She could see! Vinyl Scratch sat up, looking around and discovered that she could actually see! She looked at her foreleg and noticed that there was something attached to it. It was some kind of mechanical device, clipped tightly to her foreleg, it was ticking at her. The devices screen was measuring something, Vinyl Scratch looked closer. It was a radiation detector, and it was slowly ticking higher and higher. Vinyl scrambled to her hooves and pulled herself out of the crater. She was... in Ponyville?
She was in Ponyville. At least, she thought she was in Ponyville. The landscape around her looked as if Ponyville would if most of the buildings were destroyed. Which they were, what had happened here?
Vinyl looked at the device on her leg, it was still ticking; the whole area was bathed in radiation. The artefact had broken; she’d heard Willoughby drop it. This had to have been a result of that. She looked at the device again she raised her other hoof and began prodding at it, with luck; it might just do something else. It had a clock. Useful to some, Vinyl supposed, but not really much to her. It also had a map of the world, once again, useful to some, but not really much to her. That seemed to be it.
The radiation counter began to tick louder, Vinyl turned the click-wheel back to the radiation detector, and it was slowly ticking upward into the red “danger” zone. Right then, time to leave! She took off running, heading out of Ponyville and into Whitetail Wood. But it seemed that no matter how far she ran, she couldn’t get out of the radiation, the counter continued to tick.
A flash of bright light appeared in Vinyl’s eyes, causing the unicorn mare to trip. She felt incredibly sick. The world began spinning around and she shut her eyes tight to keep herself from vomiting. Vinyl dared a look at the radiation detector one last time. It had ticked all the way to the top of the gauge. She didn’t know what that meant for her, but she could only imagine it wasn’t good. She shut her eyes tight, and the world began to fade away.
...
Vinyl awoke, discovering to her disappointment that she was blind again. She felt her foreleg, the device was missing. She sat up and felt her head, she was bleeding slightly, but otherwise, she seemed to be fine. It had to have been a dream, or a hallucination caused by the trauma.
“Willoughby?” She called out, there was no reply. “Willoughby?” she called again. Still nothing, Vinyl Scratch began feeling around on the floor, looking for any sign of her friend as best she could. Soon enough, she felt her leg brush up against something. Further attempts at feeling discovered that she was right next to him. Vinyl pressed her head to his chest, hoping that his lungs would actually be there. After all, for all she knew, they could have been somewhere else. Willoughby was breathing, just unconscious.
“Willoughby?” Vinyl asked, gently prodding the kangaroo, hoping that he would awaken. He did not. “Willoughby?” Vinyl asked again, she shook the kangaroo more forcefully this time, hoping to arouse any kind of response. There was none. “Willoughby? I need you to wake up now!” Vinyl said, panic filling her voice and still gaining no response. She raised her hoof and brought it down upon him in frustration.
That did get a response. Willoughby shot back to consciousness, gasping for air. “Vinyl!” He called out. “You... you were right! I was making a big mistake!”
“I tried telling you, moron!” Vinyl said, giving the kangaroo a hug. “What did you see?”
“I... I saw South Island, on fire. Everything was burning!” Willoughby said. “Was... was that the old world?”
“I don’t know Benny,” Vinyl said. “I don’t know.”
...
Willoughby withdrew the complex’s blast doors, the unicorn mare and her kangaroo companion rejoined with Princess Luna. Vinyl could only grin at her.
“And you thought Operation: SUPERBALL was crazy!” Vinyl said.
“SUPERBALL?” Willoughby asked.
“SUPERBALL,” Vinyl said, grinning widely. “Problem?”
Luna ignored the comment and got down to business. “The artefact? Where is it?”
“Destroyed,” Vinyl said. “Benny didn’t give me much choice, so I charged it with magic, and it hit us both with lightning, he dropped it and it smashed on the floor... then we... went somewhere else.”
“The old world?” Luna asked.
“It was fucked-up enough to be,” Willoughby said with a shrug.
Luna frowned slightly, but figured it was better than nothing, with the artefact gone, at least this way it couldn’t be misused. “We shouldn’t stick around. We don’t want any more concentrated exposure to the radiation that we can avoid.”
All were in agreement; they departed from the facility without another word.
Willoughby was the last one out; he took a look back, thinking about what he was leaving behind.
He wished that he’d been able to make the right choice the first time.