Chapter One
“What are those supposed to be?” Octavia raised a delicate eyebrow at two floating strips of blue dyed parchment held in place by the magic field of her unicorn visitor.
Her friend had arrived just moments before, slamming the door to her modest apartment open after only a single knock. She wasn’t unhappy for the company in the least. With her orchids watered, Octavia found herself hard pressed for anything to do until lunch. Her home was impeccably clean already and she had finished reading her latest trashy novella. She made a mental note to push it farther under her mattress. No need for anypony to find it and get ideas.
“These, my dear Tavi, are train tickets. Tickets for two ponies on the mid-day express to Ponyville.” Vinyl smirked, showing teeth as she lifted her dark glasses up and set them gently to rest behind her horn. “Tickets for two ponies, such as you and I, to go get some of the best cupcakes in the whole dang world!”
Octavia put on her best ‘seriously unamused face’ and turned it up to eleven. Normally that face and a few moments of a silent dead stare would shew away whichever pony dared annoy the cellist. But the DJ looking at her with an idiot’s grin on her face was not, strictly speaking, a normal pony. As a fellow musician favored by the nobility here in Canterlot, Vinyl Scratch has seen her fair share of stern faces, and broken every one of them.
“Cupcakes at mid-day? What are you, an addict?”
“The tabloids think so!” Vinyl’s grin got brighter, “But the truth is, I just want to cheer you up Tavi. I know you hate being without your cello. Since it’s in the shop getting re-stringed, and my speakers got bucked in last night at the rave, I figure we might as well treat ourselves! And you know Pinkie Pie makes the best cupcakes. Remember those samples she had at the after-after party for the wedding? Those were INTENSE!”
Octavia pursed her lips in thought. The after-after party had been thrown for the servers and professionals that helped make the royal wedding the memorably event of the year. It was small in scale, but lavish. When Pinkie Pie crashed it, figuratively and literally, she brought a wagon full of sweets. How a pony smashes through a stained glass widow from three stories high and lives to tell the tale, she still couldn’t fathom.
The cupcakes Pinkie brought were sublime. Layered in sweet flavors and bright colors, the texture alone was worth a write up in the Canterlot Times. And they were every bit as intoxicating as they appeared. Octavia struggled to hold off a blush as she recalled just where and with whom she’d awoken the next morning. And she had only eaten three! Vinyl bragged later that she had eaten a full dozen that night and still managed to stumble back to her apartment.
“Y-yes. I suppose ‘intense’ would be an adequate description. And I suppose a treat couldn’t hurt. But only one! I do not want a repeat performance of last time.”
“Awesome! C’mon, let’s hit the pavement! The train leaves in an hour and I want a window seat!” Vinyl Scratch dropped her glasses back over her red eyes and snatched the tickets from the air with her mouth.
“I let you talk me into the most imbecilic things at times, you know? I hope there isn’t a letter for us while we’re out. Now would be an awful time for an assignment to come in.”
Vinyl snorted dismissively and trotted to the door of Octavia’s apartment, kicking it open without so much as a look back.
“If the agency needs us that badly; they’ll get word to us no matter where we are. Besides, it’s Wednesday. Nothing interesting or remotely dangerous ever happens on Wednesdays.”
The darker colored Earth Pony shook her head, following a few steps behind. She closed the door and paused long enough to lock it before walking down the stairs with the white unicorn. She reflected for the millionth time on what an odd couple they must seem with their wildly different styles, tastes, and backgrounds. Yet here they were together again. Just good friends, no matter what the tabloids thought.
***
Canterlot traffic was thick on the way to the station. It took most of an hour to get there and the occasional stops caused by a rabid fan of one or the other was not helpful. At least once they did reach the station; the boarding platform was very sparsely populated which suited Vinyl just fine. Octavia was smiling smugly as they walked toward the waiting locomotive. Of the unplanned stops along the way, four had been big fans of her music, while only three were Vinyl’s fans. Modern music made with electronic instruments and mixers was still on the new-ish side of things here in Canterlot. Her own form of sampling and scratching with supplemental wub-step was the bleeding edge of new but hugely popular with the younger crowd. It was a testament to Octavia’s skill that she made the classical stuff cool and more than a little sexy.
Vinyl let her have it, though it smarted. She was doing this to cheer up her friend anyway. Might as well let the fans stoke Octavia’s ego too, not that it needed it. The gigs gave them both legit money, but nowhere near what their work for the agency paid. The music brought them fans and always provided a good excuse for anything ‘odd’ that might happen around them. She glanced over at the engine and saw it belch steam and heard the first real ‘chug’ as the engineer released the break on the wheels.
“C’mon Tavi! Hurry that prissy flank up! It’s about to start moving!”
Vinyl smiled as she felt a little bit of a rush and broke into a gallop for the last few feet of the platform before hopping the break to the train car. There wasn’t a conductor around at the moment so Vinyl showed herself in and took a seat near the middle of the car by a window. Not that her choices were limited, if the platform had been sparsely populated, then this train car was deserted. The DJ cocked an eyebrow and looked around again as Octavia caught up her.
“My word, Vinyl! Did you rent out the entire car?”
“Um… no? I thought I just got regular tickets.” Vinyl plucked the two tickets out from behind her ear and scrutinized them, rubbing her chin with one hoof. “Yeah. Just regular, normal ol’ tickets. Maybe there just aren’t that many ponies headed out to Ponyville at this time of day?”
Just outside the window there was a loud screech as the locomotive started to actually move. A blast of steam covered the platform, turning the few ponies there into mist shrouded shapes that began to fall away with increasing speed. The station quickly faded into the distance as the train pulled through the first of a set of tunnels that bore through the stone foundations of the capitol. Once the train passed the outer walls of the city, the descent would start and they would really pick up speed, but at first the ride was very gentle.
Octavia sat down beside her, folding her hooves neatly underneath herself. “So, how long is this trip? I’ve not taken the Express to Ponyville since the tracks were updated.”
“The tickets say the trip takes just over an hour. They refuel the engine in Ponyville and then turn the train around somehow, I dunno. Anyway, there is a two hour hold over time, and then back to Canterlot we go!”
The descent happened faster than Vinyl expected. One moment they were cruising along evenly, and then there was a slight dip and the heartbeat-like tempo of the engine started pounding like the fast beats she laid down from her turn table. Vinyl loved trains for that quality alone. When she was a filly, before the wubs found her, that rhythm, that bass, had rocked her to sleep every night at her parents’ home. Now that she was wealthy enough to do so, she took a train trip whenever she could.
Octavia startled ever so slightly when the acceleration started but it faded quickly as she looked out in awe at the cliff face flashing pass. Vinyl smirked behind her glasses, watching the expressions play across her friend’s face. The small smiles and curious turn of her eyebrows might have been missed by somepony else, but Vinyl counted Octavia as one of her closest friends and had come to know the earth pony well in the past year.
“Vinyl?” Octavia looked around the empty car again, concern tugging at the edges of her lips. “Something feels…off. No pony else has come in here. Not even a conductor to ask for our tickets and it has been at least twenty minutes now. Surely we cannot be the sole passengers? Can we?”
Vinyl scratched her head, looking about again. “Well, I guess we could be… but you’re right Tavi, something ain’t right with this.”
Octavia stood and stepped into the isle, scanning the doors on either end of the car. Frowning she moved to the opposite side and looked out the window facing the open sky and overlooking the Equestrian foothills. She made a clicking sound in her throat and gasped. Vinyl stood and stepped out into the isle herself, but before she could spit out a question, the door from the leading train car banged open and two familiar voices preceded two equally familiar faces.
“I keep telling you! It’s probably for insurance fraud! Why else would they want us to derail a train that isn’t carrying anything?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right BonBon. Let’s do this last sweep and get off this rolling deathtrap. I want to get some cupcakes.”
Author's Note
Just and FYI: I haven't decided who will win this.
