//------------------------------// // WEE - Part 6 // Story: Colgate Takes Acid // by Scott Grimm //------------------------------// Colgate Takes Acid - Part The trio straggled along as they walked up the hill Quake had previously been ridden down on. Vinyl was far ahead of the pack and Octavia took notice. "Ya know, a little help would be appreciated here..." Octavia proclaimed in a strained tone to the white mare. Octavia had been carrying the older stallion up the hill thus far but was quickly running out of steam to keep him aloft. "Yes, yes it would." Was her only response as she slowly sauntered ahead of them some more. "Vinyl, help!" Octavia demanded this time rather than giving a subtle suggestion, hoping to get the gears in the white mares mind running. "Why? You're the one that decided to help him," Vinyl responded turning back to face the duo. "But you're the one that kept going on and on and on about how we have to help this guy. Why? We know which way she went, let's go get her!" Vinyl, still trying to persuade Octavia to leave Quake to rummage in the garbage that had begun to engulf him from the impact earlier. "We coudln't just leave him down there!" "Why the hell not?" Her voice cracked at the peak of her new found octave. "Is it our fault he crashed? No. Is it our fault he decided to get ridden like a bike down a ridiculously steep hill? No. Is it our fault that Colga-" "Yes, it is our fault..." "How!?" "Well technically it's your fault, and you know damn well how. Not stop your crying and get over here and help me." With a pouted look and ears pinned back, Vinyl took her time to reach the two who were still struggling up the hill. Once she reached them she took the other free hoof and draped it over her back taking a great deal of weight off of Octavia instantly. After a few moments of silence, Vinyl puffed some of her stray hair from the front of her face. She could now see the full brightness of the yellow beams of light being sprawled through to every crack and crevice of the neighborhood via the lamp lights. She looked up into the distance, to the base of the hill and then back towards Mr. Quake. "So just what the hell were you doing out here this late at night anyways?" She questioned. "I-I was out for a walk." Quake stammered out. "A walk?" "Yes, a walk. What? You never go outside every now and again to clear your mind? There's nothing wrong with that!" Quake took a defensive tone as he completed his explanation. "Vinyl has - other means of clearing her mind. Or at least that's what she claims." Vinyl shot daggers at Octavia for her unsubtle comment. "Well I'm sorry we're not all born with a stick up our butts." Vinyl shot back at her with head held high, and eyes fully shut. "Yes and we're not all competent enough to take a friend out for a nice night on the town and not loose her." Octavia calmly and coldly retorted. "I told you already, It's not my fault!" "Well it sure wasn't mine, so that only leaves you..." "Ya know what!?" "No I don't know 'what', please enlighten me." Octavia quickly shot back. A few puffs of air escaped Vinyls mouth. What were meant to be the words of a sassy comeback were coming out in a flustered bunch of grumbles. She couldn't pick one thing to say in response to Octavia other than 'Forget this!', before she shrugged Quake off of her, forcing all of the weight to come back onto Octavia. The grey mare nearly topped over from the sudden shove. Octavia cried out to Vinyl to come back to her and help but Vinyl was already walking away at a speedy pace with no intentions of coming back to help her. "Dammit Vinyl..." Octavia muttered as she struggled to keep a wincing Mr Quake off the ground. Barely regaining both of their composure, Octavia stood there panting for a few moments to catch her breath. The two of them took only a few steps more before Octavia's legs began to buckle underneath their combined weight. "W-would you mind if we rest for a moment?". Quake only responded with a simple nod. Carefully positioning her body, Octavia slowly leaned Quake downwards onto the grass besides the sidewalk, in hopes not to harm him any further. Once he was firmly down on the grass, Octavia collapsed her rump onto the grass as well, having to shoot her forelegs behind her quickly to prevent a stumble. She panted aloud as she looked up at the sky silently thinking to herself of how out of shape she had gotten. Quake on the other hand just sat there staring at the grey mare. "She's a bit brash isn't she?" He questioned, breaking Octavia's heavy breathing. She chuckled at the question as she steadied her breath. "Yeah, she can be at times. Well, most of the time at least." "I couldn't tell." Quake earned another chuckle from Octavia. "So, what's the story with your friend?". "Oh I don't know... Sometimes I wonder why I'm even with someone like that. I mean, I guess I love her. But I can't help but feel like she takes me for granted. She tries, and I know she does but it just seems like whenever something gets to be too much she just bails on me." Octavia turned to face Quake and put her hoof on his leg and leaned in to him to put more weight on her words. "And this isn't even the first time shes done something like this! Oh no. No, she's left me plenty of times before. Just this last month, at our friend Roses party, she announced that her and her marefriend had just been approved for adopting a foal of their own. They've only been together for two years! Me and Vinyl, five. Five years and no signs of commitment. I ask her if we'd ever consider having a foal of our own and she gets incredibly defensive with me and leaves the party! Not right away of course and not obviously, but she slid out when no one was looking. When we all got together at the end of the party to take a group picture was when we all finally noticed she had left. I was the only person standing there by myself! I couldn't believe her. I felt so embarrassed!" Quake stood there, his stare blank as he let her vent to him. When she finally stopped talking, Quake spoke up. "I was actually talking about the friend of yours that rode me like a bike down the hill back there..." "Oh... O-of course you did." Octavia turned away from Quake and tried covering her face with one of her hooves to hid her immense blushing. "Do you want to keep talking about her?" He questioned. "Oh no no!" She waved her hooves in disapproval at the proposal in hopes to stop the topic dead in it's tracks. "We uh-" she cleared her throat, "we can talk about Colgate, sure." "So why did she do what she did?" "It's a long story..." She took a deep breath as she looked up at the night sky once more. "It's her birthday today you see. And although I wanted to help her make it special, I actually have an audition in the morning for a cellist spot and was unable to join her. So, I entrusted Vinyl, Ms. Brash rather, with taking her out this evening and treating her to a nice night out. I had 'assumed' that she would just take her out to dinner or do something that 'she' wanted to do. Instead I come to find out, quite rudely at that, that she had in fact taken the birthday girl to a club that Vinyl frequents. And because Colgate felt like a fish out of water, Vinyl offered her acid... Multiple hits at that. And thanks to the fact that she, to the best of my knowledge, has never been on drugs before in her life, is currently out of her mind somewhere out in the city tonight." "Well that wasn't a very long story." "No there's more..." Octavia hung her head in shame. "We're kind of sort of maybe just the littlest smidgen bit of fugitives from the police now..." "What!?" "Yeah... Remember how I said I had a rude way of finding out about all this? Well, I was actually just about to fall asleep so that I could get an early start in the morning, when I get a phone call from Vinyl. She was completely freaked out on the phone and ended up hanging up on me. Knowing the kind of messes she gets into I decided to see what was going on... You know, in hindsight I probably shouldn't have trusted her with something this simple in the first place. Anyways, upon arrival I searched the club and eventually found them in the bathroom, or Colgate's makeshift prison for the time being. Apparently she had made so much ruckus they had to confine her in the bathroom." "Why didn't they just throw her out?" "From the events of tonight, I'm assuming they couldn't truly catch her. Only lead her into a trap. So I began questioning Vinyl about what was going on exactly. During our conversation I come to learn that Vinyl still had some drugs on her. I demanded she give them to me so I could get rid of the evidence and just as she hands it to me, the cops bust the door in and catch me red-hoofed. So naturally I just ran away, Vinyl in hoof..." "Wait, you just left your friend there?" "No, of course not... She wiggled her way through a ceiling window right as the cops busted in. We've been trying to catch her ever since." Mr. Quake began to chuckle at the very idea of a mare being able to perform such an act. Slowly his chuckle became a full on chuckle. "And just what the hell is so damn funny?" Octavia scowled. "I think you mares are going about things all wrong. Think about it? You've escaped for now, but then what? You think the police are just going to let you go? Tomorrow they're still going to be after you. And the day after that, and the day after that. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but it's not going to work out well for any of you..." "So why in the world are you laughing?!" Octavia was growing impatient with Quake's words. "I'm laughing because there is an obvious solution for all of this..."