Vinyl Scratch; a musician of the highest calibre. A master of the turntables. A surfer, riding the thunderous, tempestuous waves of sound and music that fuel the intense raves she performs at. A genius when it comes to raw musical talent.
And, today...
The world's sneakiest criminal.
Observe, if you will, the gentle hoof-falls, the perfectly placed steps, as she makes her way silently - imagine that; Vinyl Scratch doing anything silently! - across her house.
Oh? Here she is, at The Border, so named because it is the line, the arbitrary point decided on during this house's construction, that splits the house between her side...
...And Octavia's.
Gently, ever so gently - no, more gently than that! More...
Perfect. Her foot is on the floor now, but that is only the beginning of this particular trial.
Because The Border's floorboards are squeaky.
Vinyl gingerly, one ounce at a time, places her weight on her hoof, ears tensed, waiting for the slightest sign of a creak.
Nothing.
Another ounce.
Nothing.
And so she continues, putting every iota of concentration into making not a single noise. Minute after minute ticks by, until, an eternity later, she has done it; she has taken the dangerous step across The Border's squeaky floorboard!
She takes another step, a triumphant grin plastered across her face-
Squeeeeeeeeeeeak!
With a wordless yelp of panic, Vinyl throws herself forward, barreling through the small corridor, before stopping, calming herself. Octavia isn't even home, you foolish mare! Take charge of your senses! Slowly, slowly, she slouches, breathing deep, even, relaxed.
One obstacle down, three to go.
The next such obstacle in our intrepid unicorn's path is...
...A keypad.
An unusual thing for Octavia to have, but Vinyl, being the stoic, accepting mare that she is, overlooked it; Octavia was permitted her secrets. After all, Vinyl had The Big Secret, the one nopony must know... Why shouldn't Octavia have hers?
Except today, Vinyl was determined to reveal her friend's secret, to get past the keypad.
As she concentrates, her horn beginning to glow with cobalt-blue light, let us leave this house, this time, in favor of another.
This moment, like the one we just came from, is centered around Vinyl Scratch; in this time, three days previous, she sits at a table, coolly sipping some soda through a straw, gazing at the two mares in front of her.
"And so then she hopped right out the window." Lyra Heartstrings - a mare mint green in coat and mane, save for one stripe of snow-white shooting through the latter - says, gesturing dramatically with a forehoof. "She grappled her way to the ground, and blended in like the super-spy she is!"
"Lyra." her friend, a mare with a two-toned, curly mane of pink and violet, admonishes. "I get it. The Equestrian Monster Hunting Society's been declassified, and I understand that you're excited! But please, rein it in! This is the seventh time you've told this story! And I think Vinyl's been here for three of them!"
Vinyl chuckles to herself. 'Rein in'. Sometimes, being a pony was funny just because. Oh? Were these two saying more things? She'd better get back to listening! Turning her head, she begins paying attention just as Lyra says her name.
"It's okay to be open about it now, Bon; everypony has their secrets. Why, I'm sure even Vinyl's got some skeletons in her closet! Figuratively. I hope..."
An eyebrow raised, the DJ turns to the mare formerly known as 'Bon Bon'.
"Oh, hush, Lyra." Sweetie Drops says, giving the mare next to her a playful nudge with a hoof. "There's no need to pry into other ponies' lives. Even if Vinyl did have a secret, it's not our place to try and guess at it. If it exists at all, that is."
Vinyl's eyes narrow behind her glasses as she stares the two ponies down. Did they know? They couldn't; she'd been keeping The Big Secret That Nopony Must Know so secret! They were just being silly! Silly Lyra and silly Sweetie Drops, saying silly words about silly things they should know absolutely nothing about. How very, very silly!
As Vinyl considers killing the pair of mares, just in case, let us return to the present, where Vinyl has just completed a very complicated spell. Taken from the archives of a very intelligent purple winged unicorn, this 'keypad bypass' spell could compute thousands of possible combinations in a second, deduce the correct one, and enter it into the keypad, all faster than you could say; 'Taken from the archives of a very intelligent purple winged unicorn, this 'keypad bypass' spell could...'
You get the picture.
Vinyl sits, exhausted, watching with a grim smile as the cloud of blue haze around the keypad does its work. Five seconds later, it emits a cheery 'ding!', and the light above it turns green.
Vinyl pumps a hoof; she's in.
Slowly, so slowly, she opens the door, revealing Octavia's room; tiled floor, marble counter, sink... Toilet... Shower...
Who in Equestria has a keypad for their bathroom!?
As Vinyl represses the urge to murder her housemate, let us leave and venture to another time and place; half-past three in this very house, to be exact. Octavia sits on the couch in their shared living room, gazing at who else but Vinyl Scratch. They'd just finished playing a rousing game of 'Conversation', an activity not unlike a fusion of '20 Questions' and 'Charades', designed around Vinyl's inability to speak.
"So... You believe I'm hiding something, is that it?" Octavia's head is cocked, a slender eyebrow raised. Slowly, Vinyl puts down the window cleaning fluid, flips the coffee table right-side up with her magic, and takes her glasses off, turning the lenses purple once again. Then, ponderously, she nods, her head drooping.
"Why, Vinyl, that's preposterous!" Octavia says, giving her housemate a thin, wavering smile. "You know just as well as I that I am an open book! No secrets here; not a one! Octavia: The Completely Honest Mare, that's what they call me!"
Vinyl continues to stare at Octavia. Sweat begins to bead up on the cellist's brow.
"Er... Well, maybe I've told a few white lies, here and there, but who doesn't! Well, you; you can't speak... Er... Vinyl, you trust me, right? It's me! Tavi! The ol' Tavster! Miss Melody! You know I'd never..." she lets out a nervous chuckle. "Hide anything from you, right?"
Vinyl continues to stare at Octavia.
"Vinyl... Vinyl, I... I may be... Vinyl, are you... Asleep?"
Rising from the couch, Octavia gazes through the lenses of Vinyl Scratch's glasses and, sure enough, her eyes are closed. Soft snores begin drifting from her mouth,
It is, after all, half-past three.
As Octavia sighs with relief, we return once more to the present, where Vinyl has taken a different approach to Octavia's second keypad. The 'keypad cracker', as our unicorn has aptly named it, may be effective, but it's strenuous; Vinyl simply doesn't have it in her to fire it off again. Instead, a soft magenta light emanates from the DJ's horn; a black-light spell, used in many clubs to identify guests from party crashers. Three numbers on the keypad glow; Tavi's touched them and not the others.
Zero, seven, and one.
Vinyl's eyes narrow as she approaches the keypad, mind whirring. Just those three numbers could have - carry the one, add seven, multiply by today's date - any number of combinations, and the keypad could be wired to an alarm; she needs to get this right the first time.
The zero glows brighter than the other two numbers; Tavi's pressed it more. There must be two zeroes in the combination. One-Zero-Zero-Seven? It's a year, but it isn't likely; after all, it's still June, mid 1003. Why would she assign a year four years after this one as her password? 1007 could also be a date - 10/07, or October seventh - but why would it be that? As far as Vinyl knows, nothing momentous had ever happened to either her or Tavi on October seventh. Still, the date theory holds water, which leaves either 0710 or 0107; July tenth or January seventh.
And therein lies the problem.
Octavia's birthday is the seventh of January, which would make it the likeliest candidate were it not for the fact that the two of them had moved in together, starting their lives in this bifurcated home in this small, quiet town, on July tenth.
It all came down to a simple question: Which was more important to Octavia; her birthday, or moving to Ponyville with Vinyl?
As Vinyl stares up at the keypad, the blinking green light above the thing gives her no answer. She scowls, turning the question over in her mind. Birthday. Moving in. Birthday. Moving in.
She stares at the keypad and snarls at it. Who did it think it was, with its dumb green light and glowy keys? She was Vinyl Scratch, and she knew her friend; of course Octavia would treasure them moving in together more than her birthday!
...Right?
She growls, her face set into a determined grimace, hoof slowly lifting. One shot, one chance. She stares down the blinking... green light...
Green light.
Sighing, Vinyl reaches over and pushes Octavia's door open.
Vinyl, at first glance, seems like an unruly mare; she attends wild parties, plays music loud enough to shake loose fillings, and chugs soda with a fervor bordering on religious zeal. But that's only half of the story. Behind closed doors, the mare is actually somewhat of a clean-freak; her room is almost too neat, everything organized in its proper place and never moved from it unless it's to be re-organized into a more proper order. Sometimes, Vinyl sleeps on the couch simply because she doesn't want to mess up her bed, and Celestia help anypony who dares to bring food into her section of the house.
Octavia, in similar fashion, seems to be an absolute slob. Blankets and sheets litter the floor of her room, interspersed between stacks and piles of trash, food wrappers, and old magazines. As Vinyl trots carefully though the veritable minefield of clutter, though, she does manage to find some semblance of order to the seeming chaos. There, those books; they're near the bed, so that must be Tavi's night-time reading. That pile of bow-ties is stained and wrinkled, and that pile over there isn't; dirty and clean laundry. And, of course, there's the main trash pile, secondary trash pile, with tertiary through septenary trash piles over there, lining the far wall. There's the path leading to Tavi's bed, the only part of the room free of disorder, and...
Vinyl grins; the path branches off, leading to a seemingly innocuous part of the wall. However, the stack of empty wine bottles in front of the wall seems too stable... Vinyl trots up to it and gives it a push. As she suspected; it's fake! Letting out a cry of triumph, Vinyl shifts the 'stack', resting the cardboard cutout on a nearby desk overflowing with half-done compositions, and examines the wall behind it.
It seems like an ordinary stretch of wall, but another examination with the black-light spell reveals hoofprints right about here...
Slowly, the wall swings inward, revealing a hidden cubby nearly twice as large as Vinyl is. A small, ceiling mounted light illuminates a wooden stand holding...
Vinyl sits down on her haunches, confused. Slowly, the object slides from the alcove and hovers in front of the mare, wrapped in a gentle blue field.
This is what Octavia was hiding? It can't be; it's too simple, too easy! This isn't big or earth-shattering at all! Why, it's just-
"Vinyl?" Octavia's voice rings out loudly, shattering Vinyl's thoughts. "I'm home! Vinyl?"
Hide, hide, she must hide! Octavia can't see her like this; what would she say!? Quickly, Vinyl looks around, eyes searching, desperate for a place to hide...
At last, as Octavia's hoofsteps echo through the house, Vinyl turns, ducks into the cubby and, with a wave of her horn, shuts the entrance, sealing her in total darkness.
She waits, breathing as silently as she can, heart pounding, so loud, so loud! Can't Octavia hear it? Can't she hear Vinyl's frenzied heart, her panicked breaths!? She must be taunting Vinyl; yes, that was it. She knew, she knew Vinyl was here, she was taking her time, making a game of it, putting on a show. Oh, and there go her hoofsteps, on their way to Vinyl's own room, pretending not to know! Vinyl hisses; well, she'd show Octavia! She'd escape, right now, and catch her in the act!
Bursting from the hidden closet, Vinyl tears through the room, past the fake bottles, past the keypad, past the other keypad leading to the bathroom of all places, vaulting The Border and causing the mother of all floorsqueaks to pierce the silence as she sprints towards her room.
Octavia is in there, a panicked look on her face, holding something behind her back.
Something brown.
And wooden.
She has the Secret.
The Secret Nopony Must Know About.
She is holding it, the dirty spy, the thief! She holds the Secret in her hooves...
...Just as Vinyl holds Octavia's secret in her magic.
Slowly, silently, Octavia brings her hooves around, displaying the violin in the fluorescent light.
Slowly, silently, Vinyl lowers the guitar, the instrument hovering still in her magic.
The two gaze at the violin and the guitar, then at each other, then at the violin and guitar, then at each other again.
Slowly, Octavia slumps, setting the violin down on Vinyl's pristine floor. She brings a hoof to her face...
...And laughs.
Let us go now to a different moment, a point later in time, a place different from the one we are in. Vinyl and Octavia sit at a table, both drinking. They stare at each other, and Octavia sighs.
"...And you two had that secret the entire time!?" Lyra guffaws, waving a hoof excitedly. "That's hilarious!"
"It was, three days ago, when it happened." Octavia says, a hoof to her temples. "Lyra, please! This is the fifth time you've-"
"Can you believe it, Bon? All this time, Vinyl played violin and Tavi played guitar! Oh, man, that is rich. Don't you think so?"
Sweetie Drops says nothing; she'd left a minute ago, an exasperated sigh punctuating her exit. A cardboard cut-out of the mare stands in her place, wearing an expression that can only be described as 'aggressively bored'.
"You're right, Bon; it is the funniest thing I've ever heard." Lyra giggles. "Oh, man... Oh! You two should perform together; I'm sure we'd all love to see it!"
Octavia raises an eyebrow, looking at Vinyl with interest. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the DJ nods, head drooping.
"I think that's a decent idea, Lyra." Octavia says, smiling. "And I know Vinyl's been practicing; haven't you, Vinyl? ...Vinyl?"
Vinyl continues to stare at Lyra, and Octavia sighs.
"You're asleep, aren't you?"
Octavia looks into Vinyl's eyes, closed tight, as the DJ begins snoring softly, and laughs.
Author's Note
Yet another 3-AM baby. This is also my first attempt at this wacky, third-person 'gonzo-style' writing; I rather enjoy it, and hope you do too.
