“No... way.”
Octavia's mouth hung agape as her friend chomped on the last piece of pie on the table. The violet eyed pony would have smirked if her cheeks weren't completely full from victory. “Aww yeah!” Vinyl managed to say as the final bites of pie moved down her throat. “That's how you guzzle down a pie! Got any soda?”
Vinyl Scratch let out a loud burp, which made the gray earth pony wince and inch her chair away from her. “Shouldn't have bet against me Tavi!” she said as she drained the nearby water glass. She moved over to the refrigerator and opened it. Within seconds, her head was lost in the depths of the fridge.
“I told you, my name is Octavia,” the gray pony responded as she turned around in her chair to survey the new punishment that she had to endure.
Their kitchen was an absolute mess. Two pie tins were sitting on a table in the relatively close dining room, but it still managed to get dirty from the contest. Four empty pie tins laid on the tile floor in the kitchen. Since they were upside down, the remaining cherry contents leaked onto the floor. Dirty dishes were piled up inside of the sink, neglected since Vinyl decided to skip her turn and create another good beat for her next concert. At least, that is what Octavia assumed.
Octavia distinctly remembered coming home to a dirty kitchen. She kicked open the door to her friend's room and fought with the mare for a half hour. She told Vinyl that doing the dishes was not hard, and that she was completely immature for deciding to nap rather than help out around the apartment.
As a response, Vinyl challenged Octavia to a pie eating contest. The loser would do the dishes and one extra dare. It was a classic misdirection. Vinyl used it more than the kick or wub, and Octavia fell for it.
The loser moved over to the kitchen. Her face slowly turned into one of disgust as she placed one of her hooves over the empty pie tins that Vinyl threw behind her during the contest. She finished 5 pies while Octavia finished half of one. Octavia felt like her stomach was going to turn over. Her muzzle was covered in cherry bits. Pie crumbs were spread throughout her mane due to her desperation to win. Despite her sacrifice to martyr her mane and appearance, she still lost.
The faucet spewed out water onto the pile of dishes as Octavia tried to figure out a way to start the stipulation of her defeat. She didn't even know where to start! Pots and pans were in a maelstrom inside of the sink. Some were turned over, some were on their side, but Octavia knew that every single dish in their house was probably inside of this sink. Dishes were piled on the counters to the right and left of the sink, along with a collective amount of dishes behind her on another counter. Used pots and pans from Octavia's previous dinner were stationary on the stove. Octavia had a feeling that the dishes was going to take at least two hours. This feeling flooded her body with irritation.
Vinyl retreated from the refrigerator with a can of cola in her hoof and she looked towards her roommate. The irritation was lost on her since Vinyl had only moved in a week ago. The two of them were still trying to understand each other. Considering Vinyl previously had a roommate that did every chore with pleasure, the shift to a roommate that distastes the dishes was not caught on her yet.
The water ran and Octavia grabbed a sponge in order to start up her duties. One side of the sink started to fill up with soapy water while Octavia organized all of the dirty dishes into specific piles. Plates were in one group and bowls were in another. She organized all the way up to the silverware, which she placed at the bottom of the water filled sink since she knew those were the hardest to clean when the food dried up. Octavia started scrubbing while Vinyl ravished in the glory of her victory.
“So Tavi, what do you think I should have you do for the dare?” Vinyl asked as she sat back at the table. She gathered the pie tins from the floor and tossed them into the trash. She made sure to be careful since she didn't want to step into the cherry bits and track it around the house. After a few hops and skips, Vinyl was in the dining room and away from the mess.
Octavia increased the pressure on the jagged side of the sponge as she looked to the cleaner kitchen floor. “If throwing away a few pie tins is so easy for her, why couldn't she clean her own dishes?” Octavia thought as she turned back to the dishes. The sooner she blew through them, the sooner she could go to bed.
Vinyl tilted her glasses up to reveal the magenta hues that had spellbound the orchestral pony in their first meet up. “Is there anything else that I can do for you Tavi?” she asked. She could already feel the tiredness setting into her body from the massive amounts of pie that she consumed. Plus, she had work in the morning with her roommate. She had to be awake for that.
Octavia shook her head as the smell of the cherries on the floor met her nose. She merely sighed and shook her head. “I don't need any help, thank you. I'll just clean the whole kitchen by myself.”
“Gee, thanks Tavi!” Vinyl responded as she zipped out of the dining room and left Octavia alone with her thoughts.
Octavia sighed once more as she finished another dish. “It's Octavia.”
~
“Tavi! Tavi wake up! We are going to be late for work!”
Mulberry eyes quickly opened at the sudden interruption. Octavia shuffled around in her bed and faced her back to Vinyl as she buried her head into her pillow. “Vinyl, what are you even talking about? I don't have work,” she said, albeit her voice was slightly muffled from her pillow.
Vinyl smirked and placed her glasses back over her eyes. “You do now. I dare you to work with me at Wubway for a week.”
Octavia turned around in her bed to stare at Vinyl. The white mare was already dressed in the uniform, which was composed of a forest green shirt with the Wubway logo on it, followed by a black visor and a black apron that covered most of her front. She wore black slacks on her hind legs with a belt to make sure that the pants didn't slide down her hips. Except for the glasses and her hair, Vinyl looked professional.
Octavia would have been surprised if the irritation over the stipulations of her bet wasn't in control of her body. With a sigh, Octavia got out of bed and walked over to her shower. “You are lucky that I don't have anything planned for this week, or else I'd kill you,” Octavia said as she walked into her bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Vinyl imitated a grimace of pain as she glanced at the clock to make sure that her roommate and her would be at work on time. She trotted to her room and pulled out one of her spare outfits from her dresser for Octavia. She moved back to Octavia's room and was surprised to find the mare already out of the shower with a towel around her waist and hair. Octavia certainly knew how to rush herself if she needed to. After some teeth brushing and quick mane adjusting, Octavia snatched the outfit from Vinyl and put it on in the bathroom.
Vinyl turned around while Octavia got dressed and she smiled at how well the outfit fit her. The forest green and black was not exactly the perfect color scheme for Octavia's mane or coat, but she was able to pull off the outfit quite nicely. “Looking good, Tavi,” Vinyl said as she jerked her head in the direction of the front door. “I would love to stare at you all day in that outfit, but we gotta go.”
Octavia resigned to her new nickname and nodded her head without saying anything. Her expression remained sour as the two of them trotted out the door.
Vinyl kept her smile and she looked to her roommate. Their walk for the past five minutes was done in complete silence. As much as Vinyl wanted to let Octavia remain with her thoughts, there were numerous guidelines that Vinyl had to explain to her roommate to make sure that Octavia's position as a coworker wouldn't be immediately revoked. Her head bowed towards the ground for a few moments as she realized the possible finality of her predicament, but she couldn't focus on that now. Octavia and her had an eight hour day to work. She raised her head and smiled at her roommate. “Thank you for agreeing to work with me, Tavi,” Vinyl said in a slightly lower voice than she usually would. Only slightly, however.
Octavia kept her gaze on the road and she lightly nodded her head to acknowledge Vinyl. “It's not like I had a choice. Making a bet against a mare like me, you know that I can't deny it,” she responded with the slightest amount of irritation. Only slightly, however.
Vinyl's eyes shifted left and right as the time between their destination and them started to wane. “Um... I need to tell you a few things about Wubway before you get started. First of all, I know that you are from Canterlot, and you people tend to have... mixed feelings towards different kinds of ponies or animals. We can't have you mucking up the atmosphere, you know what I'm saying?” she asked.
Octavia wasn't going to acknowledge the incorrect assumptions that Vinyl was making. It would just be more fuel for a fire that would burn down Equestria if she turned it into a “thing”. She merely nodded her head.
Vinyl continued. “Well... another thing. Everything at Wubway has to be done a specific way. At least, that is how my manager prefers it. If we are all doing something a different way, then the sy... syner... our group is going to mess up.”
“You are talking to a mare that is capable of playing cello for a four pony orchestra. I think I can understand how synergy works,” Octavia replied.
Vinyl ignored the attitude, she didn't have time for it. “Okay, well, first things first. Bread is cut with a slim knife, I'll show you it when we get there. It has to be cut at a forty-five degree angle, like this.” Vinyl pantomimed cutting the bread from the edges first, and then moved her hoof up and around the center of the bread until she reached the other side. “This way, if you cut the bread correctly, it is the first step to putting everything on the sandwich correctly.”
Octavia blinked a few times. She was on the verge of giggling. The slob Vinyl Scratch, the mare that didn't even want to do the dishes, was giving her tips on how to correctly cut bread? She kept her lips sealed and nodded slightly while Vinyl continued.
“Alright, so ya gotta start out with the hay meats. We don't have any actual meat, make sure to tell them that if they ask. All the meats have to be lined on the upper side of the bread, you know? You don't want someone biting into a piece of bread with no meat in it. Not cool, gotta spread that stuff out. Oh, also...”
Her voice was droning, disappearing into a void with the white noise that occupied most of Octavia's thoughts. The gray mare simply did not want to take in all of this information for a job that she wasn't going to do longer than seven days. After all, how bad could it get? Making sandwiches was not hard, and all of those little details were not going to be absorbed into an irritated mind that was lacking the needed eight hours of sleep.
“And finally, you do the veggies last in the correct order. I'll explain more when we get to work. I can train you in one area of the sandwich making area and leave you there for eight hours. Got it?”
Octavia's eyes brightened as she saw the Wubway logo over the distance. She nodded her head and sped up to a run until she reached the front door. After a tug, Octavia realized that the place was still closed. She was confused. Wasn't the manager already on duty? “Doesn't this place open earlier than eight?” Octavia asked as she looked back to Vinyl.
The white mare smirked and pulled out a pair of keys from her apron. With a simple hoof movement, the door and restaurant was open as a result. "Nope, I prepare the place beforehoof so that I can open it at this time and get started," she said. "The moment the door opens, we are open."
Octavia was certainly surprised. The restaurant was completely clean from the wooden ceiling to the white tile floors below her hooves. The walls were yellow and decorated with numerous pictures of freshly cut vegetables or fresh bread that just came out of the oven. A large glass containing unit took up half of the room while the other half was occupied with tables, chairs, and room for ponies to stare at the menu and contemplate their selection. Beneath the bane held protective gloves to avoid cross contamination with foods. Behind the glass unit were two ovens for hot sandwiches, a microwave, and a unit to hold soups at the correct temperature. Another unit for holding bread was stocked and organized to the brim with bread. The breads consisted of White, Wheat, Herbs and Cheese White Bread, Honey Oat Crumble Bread, and Jalapeno Cheese White Bread.
Beneath the ovens were three counters, two of which were refrigerated to hold ingredients at the correct temperature overnight. At the end of the counter stood a register for ringing up the transactions. Considering the main currency for Equestria was bits, the register had a hole in the middle of the register that lead to a bag below the register. Bits were rolled up into paper rolls and remained at rest in the register just in case change needed to be made for a gemstone purchase. Another notable addition to the restaurant were four speakers that hung in the corners near the ceiling. The speakers were large and looked expensive, much like all the other things in the restaurant.
Vinyl dashed behind the glass unit and with the sleight of hoof that she possessed, she managed to turn on the register, ovens, cold unit, soup units, and air conditioning to bring the restaurant to the perfect temperature while she was on her way to the back. She turned to Octavia and pointed her hoof at the mare from across the restaurant. “Take out the stuff for the veggie section. Remember this order: Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, pickle, bell pepper, olive, onion, banana pepper, jalapeno, and spinach. Sauces go in the middle and separate both veggie sides. You should have two of each. Go!”
Unknown to Octavia, Vinyl had explained the veggie orders on their walk to the restaurant. Octavia remembered the order this time around and after she washed her hooves and put on some protective gloves, the veggie side of the bane was immediately prepared within a minute. Her constant shifting between the bane and the refrigerator put the mare out of breath for a moment. Octavia let out a sigh of relief and she leaned against the bane to catch her breath.
Vinyl didn't waste any time. “Okay, meats. Do it in this order,” she said as she stated the order.
Octavia didn't miss a beat and the meats side of the bane was organized in seconds. Vinyl moved behind the bane and checked to make sure Octavia's work was satisfactory. As expected, it was beyond that. “Nice one,” Vinyl said as she gave the gray mare a hoof bump.
Octavia smiled and nodded her head slightly before the sound of a bell stirred the two mares towards the door. A brown stallion in a white suit looked towards the two mares as he stepped inside the restaurant. Octavia smiled and waved at the stallion.
“AWW YEAH! Welcome to Wubway!” Vinyl said as she pulled out a piece of deli paper and placed it onto the cutting board side of the bane.
Octavia nearly jumped onto the ceiling from the outburst. Since the two mares were practically hugging when the customer came in, Vinyl had ended up yelling in Octavia's ear. She decided not to say anything, but she did give Vinyl a deadly glance. The stallion moved over to Vinyl and gave his order, to which Vinyl smiled and nodded her head. “Alrighty! Hay BLT on wheat bread, coming right up!” Vinyl exclaimed.
Octavia's eyes were on the containers that held the “meats”. Each of the meats were neatly placed inside of their container. Folded slabs of meat were carefully placed on top of each other, and as such, vertically lined up with the plastic containers in order to stack as many meats as possible without having to cram. An indentation in the plastic containers told Octavia that the indents could not be surpassed, since not a single plastic container had a piece of hay bacon or ham stacked past it. Even Twilight Sparkle wouldn't be able to find a problem wrong with the placement of the meats in the bane! She doubted that Vinyl was the one who set up the meats. This amount of careful planning and consideration was unlike her dish evading roommate.
Ten seconds passed. Fifteen seconds passed. Octavia blinked a few times and she felt the stare of her coworker. Vinyl laughed nervously as she nudged Octavia out of the way with her hip. “I got this,” She whispered to Octavia as the DJ started to make the sandwich. The stallion kept his gaze on Octavia as he uttered what kinds of cheeses and additional things he wanted on his sandwich.
Octavia laughed nervously at the stare from the customer and she quickly moved to the back in order to move away from the stare. As much as Octavia wished it were so, the back was not less complicated than the front. She didn't even know how to make a sandwich “perfectly” yet. A part of her made her wonder why she should care. Another part of her wished that she was still in bed so that she could sleep in on a Saturday. The final part of her was a question. Where were the other coworkers?
Vinyl moved to the back after the bell on the door signaled the exit of the customer. She smiled and jerked her head in the direction of the bane. “Alrighty Tavi, we gotta get you making some sandwiches before the rush comes.”
Ding ding ding.
Vinyl looked towards the entrance and her jaw dropped. Seven ponies walked through the door and the one in the front moved towards the counter with a smile on his face. Octavia followed and quickly washed her hooves before she moved back to the bane with a new set of gloves. Vinyl's smile grew wider and she turned towards the new customer. “Aww yeah! Welcome to Wubway everypony!” Vinyl exclaimed as she pulled out four pieces of deli paper. She turned to Octavia and for the first time, the mare could see Vinyl's magenta eyes. They looked worried, possibly terrified. “Follow my lead,” she whispered as the troubling feelings immediately disappeared within her smile.
Another ten ponies walked through the front door until the line reached the door.
"Welcome to Wubway!"
“Buck me.”
