My Little RockStar

A/N This chapter is a bit short, and is not the most action packed if you know that I mean. It is however leading to some great chapters in the future so just be patient! I have school and track season, and my own band's practice everyday so I only have a time for a chapter a week, but now I really know where this story is going, and you will not be disappointed. Enjoy!

Applejack quickly slammed the barn doors shut in hope that the old hinges could still keep out the strong cold air that was blowing outside. Fall had arrived and so had the strong brisk winds that came with it. Typically the Fall season was a time for ponies to relax and mentally prepare themselves for the grueling winter ahead. This was true for all the ponies in Ponyville except for the Apple family. It was cider season again and now poor Applejack had to worry about two new tasks all at once. Making cider for everpony in Ponyville was hard enough, and now she had to worry about trying to be in a band. It was a lot to handle for just one mare, but if there was anypony tough enough to pull through it, it would be Applejack.

Now that the barn doors were shut, Applejack finally could join her other five friends that were patiently waiting to get their first band practice underway. All the girls could feel the excitement in the room. Ever since that slumber party where they had decided to make a band, the six had wanted to play, but they understood that they would have to wait for Applejack to finish her preparations for the cider sales that would start the next morning.

Twilight wasn't even able to stand still she was so excited; the thought of being a famous musician had been lingering in the back of her head all day and she was ready to get playing.

“Come on everypony!” Twilight yelled to the group. “We’re never going become rock stars if we just sit on our flanks all day!”

Rainbow Dash, being the only pony in the group with some actual musical knowledge, put herself in the position of band leader. The other girls didn’t argue. They knew they needed Rainbow Dash the most out of anypony in the band.

Growing tired of Twilight’s overenthusiastic attitude, Rainbow jumped on top of a barrel of fresh cider and began to address all of her friends.

“Girls, I know that we are all excited to be a part of this new band, but this is a challenge not to take lightly. First I recommend that we tr.....”

“Ooh, ooh, what’s our band’s name!?” Pinkie yelled.

“Well, personally I like the idea of the Fashionistas, it has a nice ring to it,” Rarity stated with a smirk. Applejack nearly fell over at the name and gave Rarity a loving smack to the head with her hoof.

“Rare, that’s got to be the worst band name I’ve ever heard of. I think we should be the Apple Buckers,” Applejack said with a quick kick of her back legs.

Before she could even react Rainbow watched as her friends began to argue over the stupid bucking band name.

“SHUT UP EVERYPONY! Rainbow yelled at the top of her lungs. This quickly got the attention of all of her friends who quickly stopped their arguing and turned back to Rainbow.

Now that Rainbow had calmed her friends, she resumed her speech from where she had previously been cut off.

“This is what I was trying to talk about,” Rainbow sighed. “All of you girls are much to worried about the small logistical aspects of this band, while there are so many more important issues that we need to deal with.”

Twilight, trying to be the mature, educated pony of the group stepped up next to Rainbow Dash and explained, “Rainbow Dash is right. We are taking things way too fast! There are much more important things to worry about like....” Twilight put her hoof to her chin to contemplate what she was going to say next. “Like song choice!”

Rainbow leaped to try to keep the words from coming out of Twilight’s mouth, but it was too late. The whole group of ponies were already back to arguing over what bands and songs to cover. Rainbow resorted back to her last method of getting the girls to settle down, and it worked just as well this time.

“If you want this to work, then everypony needs to sit down, shut up, and listen to what I have to say. Are there any objections?” Rainbow asked with a rather irritated tone of voice. She didn’t receive any replies so Rainbow Dash assumed that everypony was finally ready to calm down.

“First things first. All of you girls are so excited to get playing, but what is the one big problem that we have right now?” All of the friends looked to each other with confused looks on their faces and looked back to Rainbow.

Rainbow face hoofed. “This is going to be much harder than I thought...” she whispered under her breath.
Rainbow sighed and looked back at her bewildered friends. “The big problem is the fact that I’m the only one that actually owns an instrument, and knows how to play it.” The five other girls all nodded in agreement, realizing that they may have jumped the gun a little early on this whole band practice.

“I didn’t bring all of you to the barn today to practice,” Rainbow continued. “We're all here today so we can think of a plan of action. Step one of the plan is to make some money. Wait, I take that back; not some money, A LOT of money.”

“Why in Equestria would we need money, I thought we need instruments?” Pinkie asked. All of the girls look at Pinkie and sighed.

AJ walked up to Pinkie who looked rather embarrassed by her question. “ We need money to buy the instruments sugarcube, and from what Rainbow’s tellin us, it ain’t going to be cheap neither.”

“That’s exactly right AJ,” Rainbow thanked her friend. “The real question at hoof is how we’re going to be able to come up with so much dough in so little time.”

Applejack winked back to Rainbow and laughed.

“If you really want to make some money fast meet me at this very spot tomorrow mornin at sunrise, and don’t ya dare be late!”

*------------------*

Just as Applejack had hoped, all of her friends were at the barn just as the sun has begun to rise over the hills. Needless to say, everypony but Applejack was incredibly tired from lack of sleep. Normally Rainbow Dash would have been an incredible pain in the flank and would have refused to do any hard work so early, but ever since she had become the band leader she felt the need to be more responsible. It was hard, but Rainbow was able to keep a smile plastered on her face as the rest of her friends yawned and rubbed their eyes.

Rarity was the first to ask the question that was on everyponies mind. “Applejack, why are we out here in the cold so early in the morning, this is ruining my usual beauty sleep schedule. Applejack just chuckled and pointed her hoof toward the road leading to Ponyville from the farm.

All of the girls turned around and gasped at the sight. There was a line of ponies as far as the eye could see. How could they have forgotten that this was the first day of cider season?

Applejack whistled and managed to get her friend’s attention once more. “As ya’ll can see, today is the first official day of cider season, and with thirsty ponies, comes full wallets.”

All of the mares nodded with a new found enthusiasm that they lacked when they first arrived at the farm.

Pinkie Pie began to jump and up and down yelling, “We’re rich, we’re rich!” Rainbow grabbed hold of the bouncing pony and held her down.

“Chill out there Pinkie,” Rainbow scolded. “So Applejack, I’m guessing that we’re going to help you out during cider season in exchange for instrument money?”

Applejack smiled, “Ya guessed right, I suppose you do have a brain under that thick skull of yours Rainbow.” Rainbow sighed and decided it would be best to take it as a compliment rather that start yet another argument so early in the morning.

With that, the six friends walked into the barn to prepare for a long day of work.

*------------*

The girls were beat. The sun had just gone down and the last ponies in line had finally been served. Luckily for the Apple family, this season a new approach was taken. To try and keep the fighting to a minimum, they made a weeks worth of cider in advance and served it all in one day. The line was long and ponies were a little disappointed that they would have to wait a whole year to get another mug of the liquid gold, but at least everypony got a mug, and nopony got more that another.

After each girl had a chance to use AJ’s shower the group all sat down at the dinning room table to discuss the day and, more importantly, count the money they had earned.

Fluttershy yawned and smiled as she began to devour the small salad she had brought home. “Wow, I never knew how difficult it was to be a number one fan.” Normally the other girls would have laughed at the attempted humor from Fluttershy, but even laughing took too much energy so they all decided that a smile would have to do.

AJ walked back in from the kitchen with a large platter of assorted apple products as well as a whole barrel of cider that she had saved for her friends and herself. Everypony was far too busy filling their glasses with the last bit of cider to even notice AJ leave the room once again. After each pony had a chance at the cider tap they took their seats again and began to eat.

Applejack returned with a large velvet sack of bits. All of the girls stopped chewing and watched as AJ poured the bits out on the table. Applejack happily took a seat at the end of the table as the rest of her friends stared at the pile of bits in the center of the table.

“I’ve never seen so much money in my entire life!” Rarity yelled. Rainbow Dash wanted to make some clever comment on the amount of money, but nothing seemed awesome enough to accurately depict the situation.

“Wow,” was the only thing that Twilight was able to spit out.

“26,000 bits,” Applejack proudly stated to her friends who still refused to take their eyes off of the money. AJ clapped her hooves together to get the attention of her friends.

“Now of course I can’t give all of these here bits to the band, but I reckon that after I remove all of the farm expenses from the total that leaves us with about 10,000 bits for the band.”

Rainbow Dash jumped and hugged AJ. “Thank you so much AJ, this is more than enough to be able to get all of the equipment that we need. I suppose that we could go buy everything we need tomorrow.”

Fluttershy got up from her seat and quietly asked, “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, where will we even go to buy this stuff, I don’t think that there is a music store in Ponyville.”

Rarity nodded, “ I must agree with Fluttershy here, where will we be able to buy all of these elaborate instruments that Rainbow Dash keeps speaking of?” Rainbow Dash put a hoof around Rarity.

“Not to worry my friends, we can buy all of these elaborate instruments,” Rainbow quickly jabbed Rarity for calling something so trivial as an instrument as ‘elaborate,’ “at the music store in Manehatten tomorrow. We can just make a trip out of it!”

Pinkie jumped at the thought. “Ooh, ooh, a vacation! That’s almost as good as a party!”

So it was settled. Tomorrow morning the six friends would take the train to Manehatten and visit the music store. Rainbow was looking forward to the trip. She hadn't visited Manehatten since she learned to fly. If she had the time she wanted to visit her parents and say hello to some old neighbors. There was one pony she would have to find though. The unnamed, tattooed Rock & Roll Pony that changed her life for the better so many years ago. Rainbow had some very important questions to ask this old colt...