Electronic music was the newest thing to hit Ponyville. It started slowly at first, when newcomer pony Vinyl Scratch, a white unicorn with a shock of blue mane and purple shades, opened up Ponyville’s first nightclub. At first, the loud noises coming from the nightclub scared off many ponies from even looking at the club and the white unicorn went unnoticed. But then the first few started going into the club sometime in the evening when it opened. When they didn’t come out as night fell, many ponies were scared of something happening to them, as though the unicorn had done something to them.
Suddenly, the bass began to kick in. Strange lights shone from the muted windows and doors as the nightclub became alive with sounds and lights. Music poured out from the little building and scared many of the ponies away. A few others became curious after hearing the sounds from inside the building and wandered in. The lights and the sound didn’t stop until very early in the morning, when the sun was beginning to rise over the hills of Canterlot. A few ponies actually went up to the building once the lights and sounds had vanished and wanted to see what was going on. There came a talking and laughing from inside the building, and all the ponies who had gone in came out singing praises for the unicorn Vinyl Scratch and her new music, which she had labeled “dubstep”. They talked of its danceable beat, of its new sound unlike the classical music that everypony had been raised on since they were foals and had become more than accustomed to, and of the unicorn herself, labeling her as both a genius and a very accommodating and amicable pony.
The reports spread like wildfire, and soon ponies were lined up to enter the prestigious new entertainment facility, complete with a large dance floor and even a bar with salt licks and cider along with small snack food items. The club started to have longer hours and opened in the afternoon to accommodate the sudden rush of attendees. Soon, the establishment also boasted a new record store where music of the pony Vinyl Scratch could be bought. For the most part, classical music seemed to be forgotten amidst the rush of ponies suddenly indulging themselves in this “dubstep”.
One of the few ponies who wasn’t affected by this new craze was Fluttershy, the timid yellow pegasus who lived on the outskirts of Ponyville near the Everfree Forest. Here she raised animals of all kinds, feeding them and providing shelter. Her house happened to be on the opposite side of Ponyville from where Vinyl’s new nightclub was, so Fluttershy almost never even saw the building. Even when she went near the building once, the sudden appearance of a loud bass in the track caused her to bolt off in fright, where she went back home and turned on an old record of a solo cellist calmly playing a soothing piece on the strings.
One day, Fluttershy was taking care of one of the animals on her farm, slowly wrapping a small bandage around the injured mouse’s foreleg. Every once in a while there came a rumbling in the distance, but Fluttershy paid it no attention.
“It’s alright, little one,” Fluttershy said calmly, the sounds of the cello playing in the background. “Just hold on one second and this bandage will cover your wound.”
The mouse chittered happily in reply.
But as Fluttershy continued to place the bandage on the mouse, the rumbling became louder and more constant. Soon, the rumbling had enveloped the entirety of the cottage. The poor mouse suddenly fell onto the ground and rolled about in the shaking, undoing the bandage that Fluttershy had been placing on it. Another jolt came by that was so strong some of the books on the shelves were toppled off and Fluttershy’s record player needle scratched and jumped off, causing it to stop playing.
One of the birds nearby was twittering madly. Fluttershy went over to it held out a hoof for it to perch on, which it did almost immediately and started twittering and chirping in distress.
“The music’s coming from that new building at the other edge of town?” Fluttershy responded. “But why is it so loud? And why isn’t anypony stopping it?”
The bird chirped some more, hopping up and down on Fluttershy’s hoof in distress for a minute before settling down and ruffling its feathers.
“Wow… I had no idea even Twilight would be in to that music. It’s her that got me into this cellist I’ve been listening to lately. Maybe… maybe I should go over there and see if she could talk the ponies into quieting it down. They’d listen to Twilight if she told them to stop because it was disturbing the wildlife.”
The bird this time shook its head and pointed a wing at itself.
“Oh, you don’t have to go there. I just need to talk to Twilight about the music. I’m sure it won’t take that long.”
So Fluttershy walked across town and went over to the Golden Oaks Library, where she hoped that Twilight would be trying to read a book or do more experiments like she usually did. But when she arrived at the library she found the windows entirely dark as though no one was inside it and a sign in the window said “CLOSED” in large red letters. Even worse, the streets around the library were empty and devoid of other ponies. Fluttershy became panicked and knew immediately where the ponies must be: at the nightclub establishment.
The place was even louder than Fluttershy thought; the sounds of hard bass-driven music mixed with the shouts and screams and talk of nearly all of Ponyville trying to cram into one establishment. The windows rattled and the floorboards creaked and shrieked from the weight of hundreds of ponies. A long line stretched all the way around the building, and it was towards the front of this line where a large white pegasus with small wings was standing guard at the door and where five familiar faces were standing in line.
“Twilight!” Fluttershy called as she raced for where the purple unicorn was at the head of the line. “There you are. Have you come to talk to the owner about turning down the volume? It’s making my ani—”
“Turn down the volume?” Twilight asked as she raised an eyebrow. “Are you kidding? The beat of this place is amazing! Why don’t you come on in with us? Your animals will be fine for one day.”
“But I was trying to fix up a bandaged mouse today and was thrown off by the music over at my cottage,” Fluttershy protested. “If the music continues, I’m afraid the animals will be hurt.”
“Oh, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, placing a hoof around the yellow pegasus. “There’s no need to worry. Come on, let’s go in!” As the large white pegasus moved out of the way with a “YEAH!!!”, Twilight dragged the flailing pegasus inside the building.
Fluttershy turned to talk to Twilight, but the pegasus couldn’t even hear her own low voice over the commotion inside. The building didn’t look that big on the outside, but inside Fluttershy was wondering how many ponies were crammed inside the dimly-lit interior. There was hardly any room to move of her own accord, and soon Fluttershy was shuffled around and pushed farther and farther away from the exit to the middle of the dance floor where, as the music quieted for just a second, Fluttershy could see the owner of the nightclub.
Vinyl Scratch was sitting behind a turntable on a large stage surrounded almost entirely by thick glass. The white unicorn wore a pair of electric blue headphones and deep purple shades, though it was hard to make out the actual colors as she was lit up from below by firey-red lights that caused her fur to turn a bright, hellish red, her mane to turn a shocking purple, and the purple of her shades to become even deeper. Almost immediately, the glasses trained themselves on Fluttershy and the unicorn bust out into an almost manic grin. Her hoof went towards a new switch on the board in front of her and flicked it as she brought a microphone to her mouth.
Everything slowed down and for a long while Fluttershy couldn’t hear anything. Her mane, along with those of every single pony in the nightclub, flew backwards as the stereos pounded. There was suddenly flying hooves and manes of ponies dancing; Fluttershy found herself grabbed not only by Twilight Sparkle but at least three other ponies and was thrown, spun, and launched across the dance floor. The poor pegasus tried to scream as loud as she could, but there came a soft voice across the dance floor that drowned out the pegasus’ screams despite being barely audible over the sound of the bass.
Everypony on the dance floor clap your hooves to the beat
‘Cause here’s Vinyl Scratch with a brand new treat.
Let the sound take you away, take the pressure off your mind,
And soon you’ll be singing to a whole new rhyme.
Let the beat move you, let the bass groove you,
Let the music awake feelings you never knew inside you.
Losing focus, losing will, the energy to fight back;
Soon you’ll all surrender to my mental attack!
It was only then that Fluttershy found herself able to hear herself scream over the sound of the music and the pounding bass, only then that she found herself able to tear herself away from the ponies grabbing at her to join them from all sides, only then that she found herself flying as far away from the nightclub as she could, and she didn’t stop until she had entered the woods at the edge of her cottage where the sound was finally blocked out.
It took a long time for Fluttershy to recover. Even after leaving the nightclub she could feel the bass pounding her entire body, her mind straining to focus on even something right in front of her, her hooves shaking like they wanted to move and yet couldn’t even sustain her balance. Eventually, the music subsided and Fluttershy found that her pounding heart was beginning to calm, her mind was beginning to realize what had happened to her, and her hooves were still shaking from nervousness.
“So that’s what was going on with that nightclub,” Fluttershy said to herself. “Everypony’s going there because the music is telling them to do so. But nopony is around anymore and it’s still causing a problem for the animals here at the cottage, not to mention the possibility of disturbing the wildlife elsewhere and weather patterns and ponies needing to do their jobs.”
Fluttershy didn’t know quite what to do. Twilight, the most reasonable pony she knew, had succumbed to that music like everypony else.
Well, potentially everypony else except one…
With this revelation in mind, Fluttershy set out to find the one pony she knew would have any chance of stopping Vinyl Scratch and her music: Octavia.
