How Vinyl Scratch got her cutie mark

by Charzoid

Rating: everyone
Tags: DJ P0N-3, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Original Character, Octavia
Length: 2217

As the the story says this the story about how vinyl got her cutie mark and also met her friend Octavia. Its not a lot but hopefully not to short of a story.

This is a short story on how everyone's favorite DJ pony got her cutie mark. Inspired by a small scene I saw in the Official MLP comic #11. A few weeks after Vinyl arrives at Canterlot with her family,she meets Octavia Melody and a few other friendly faces in the city. A love for music runs in her family but she still hasn't found her special talent. That changes one faithful day at the parade of the year.

Published 2013-10-08 16:20:02 UTC
Last updated 2013-10-08 16:20:02 UTC

A music rush

To anypony from the outside looking in, a place like Canterlot was a beautiful city and the perfect place to raise one's foal.It had almost everything a pony looking for a life of luxury could possibly ask for with its many cafes,restaurants,expensive clothes,and apartments with a view of the entire city. What more could a pony possibly want in such a wonderful place like this?

For a certain white unicorn filly with two tones of blue in her hair that covered her magenta red eyes,she just wanted either her teacher to shut up or the bell to ring. She was bored out of her mind and was feeling more tempted by the minute to just scream and take a flying leap out the window. It made no sense why her parents dragged her to this city of snobs and self absorbed jerks. Even though she had only been living there for a few weeks it felt like forever. Her dad had gotten a good gig at one of the city's down town jazz clubs and her mom jumped at the chance for a change of scenery from a place like detrot.

"MS.VINYL SCRATCH!"

At some point in time the filly named Vinyl must of fell asleep because she almost got whiplash from looking up in response to the teacher's nasty howl. In her defense this math teacher could put coffee to sleep.

"Umm....yeah teach?"asked Vinyl.

"That's Mrs.Common ratio and thank you for joining us from dreamland Mrs scratch.Since your here,come up and show us the answer to the equation on the board.What is 126 divided by 4?"asked the teacher.

Times like this made Vinyl wish she was a stronger magic user so she could teleport back in time and buck the guy who invented stupid division in the head.She didn't need detention again for not listening to the teacher so she had to think fast. As luck would have it just as the teacher had to turned around to write the problem,a small paper plane flew into Vinyl's head. Said paper contained an random bunch of numbers that said 31.5 on it. When she looked to her left she saw one of her few friends in this city named Octavia nodding to her.

"Well Ms.Scratch? The class is waiting or were you not listening again?"asked Mrs. Ratio.

Vinyl confidently walked up to the board and wrote the answer her friend gave her. There was no doubt that she was right,even though they had only known each other for a short time Vinyl quickly learned never to doubt her friend's crazy math skills. It would likely become her cutie mark one day or like she hoped to have,a cutie mark related to music. They may come from different worlds on the outside but they both really loved music.

"Correct,Miss.Scratch but don't let me catch you napping in the middle of class again."warned the teacher.

RIIIIIIIINNNNNGGG

"Class dismissed and remember to study chapter 4 page 20 for homework."called Mrs.Ratio.

"I thought that the class would never end!"shouted Vinyl to Octavia. She pretended to pass out into her locker and slid down it for emphasis.She received raised eyebrows from ponies passing by but didn't really care.

"I thought I warned you that trying to sleep with your eyes open doesn't work on teachers here and especially if your heads looking down."chuckled Octavia.

"Do you wanna listen to a new song I came up with for the parade tonight?"Octavia asked.

"Sure."replied Vinyl

They then walked to the auditorium where music classes were usually held.At this hour it was open for after school band practices. The seats where expensive but comfy leather and there were enough of them for at least 200 ponies or more. It was here that the two first met and became friends along with others. The music teacher had to go find an extra book from the supply room for a student she forgot was coming in mid class.
Flashback

As silly as it is we all have at least one day in the week we don't like for one reason or another and for Vinyl Scratch it was Thursday.It didn't help she was being put into a new school in upper canterlot on a Thursday. Her entire day so far was mostly her receiving snotty remarks about her mane from students and her contacts falling out repeatably. Her parents scheduled for her to get a mane cut and possibly glasses at some point but she'd just have to wait. Right now it was class she would normally like before having a math class as the last one of the now.The teacher here however had been rambling about how good classical music was and bad the new stuff was for at least 20 mins. Suddenly a grey-ish teal unicorn colt with a spiky black mane and blue eyes came into the room mid ramble. The teacher then left to get the new student a music book.

Thankful that the teacher had been silenced for at least a little while,she decided to thank the colt considering he was as new as her.She went over to him and extended a friendly hoof.
"You have no idea how thankful my ears are for you stopping her yapping dude. I'm Vinyl Scratch."Vinyl said to the colt.
"Shes one of those teachers huh? Figures for a place like this and I'm Neon Lights by the way." said Neon Lights. He shaked her hoof with equal friendliness.
"Luckily she isn't our regularly scheduled teacher."said an unknown voice behind them.
"I can only question how she even got a substitute teacher license."said another voice.
Turning around 2 ponies she didn't notice in a row behind her smiled at them. One was a well groomed looking grey earth pony filly with a long black mane and violet eyes.The other one was an equally well groomed slightly dark purple earth pony colt with a cobalt blue mane and light green eyes.

To the surprise of Vinyl and Neon both the seated ponies who spoke got out their seats and trotted over to them.
"I'm Octavia Melody,its always nice to see some new faces around here."greeted Octavia
"I'm Parish Nandermane but you can just call me Parry."said Parry
After school they got to know each other more. Turned out Neon didn't live to far from Vinyl's original home town. Octavia and Parish were friends from manhatten. Even though they're parents taught them to love classy music they shouldn't look down on other styles. Octavia even showed them how she liked to play funky jazz on her cello.They were friends since that day on.
End Flash back
Midway into Octavia's song,Neon lights ran into the room with a big grin on his face.
"Hey girls! You have got to come see the new float me and the band put together."he said.
They then followed him outside where they saw Parry polishing the instruments in front of it.
Every school and college in canterlot would be in the yearly Canterlot parade.Each one had a theme to represent a school club so it was no surprise that the school band float looked like a giant piano with a platform that looked like a gold trumpet. Vinyl looked at it pretty impressed but noticed Octavia looking a bit scared of it.

"I'm a little nervous about playing up there. I mean I know I've played for slightly big groups before but this is all of Canterlot we're talking about!"she confessed.
"I'm a bit nervous to Octavia but we just have be confident."said Parry.
"Yeah,I'll be cheering for you guys and I know your gonna rock up there."Vinyl agreed.

Not to long later,Vinyl scracth's Dad picked her up from school and took her to get a mane cut. Like herself, her dad was a white unicorn but with medium length red hair,a pierced ear and ice blue eyes. He was a lad back kind of guy and loved making CDs of jazz and blues music which is what the blue CD cutie mark showed proudly.

At the Salon called bombe de cheveux

Vinyl and her dad had been sitting and waiting for about one hour almost going on 2 hours now for the beautician to be finished with her hair. The hair dresser assured them it was a popular and fun look for canterlot fillies this season plus cheap. When it was finally finished the hair looked like something that belonged on a much older pony. She looked like a miniature version of her grandma.
"Its....uh different I guess." said her father.
"There is no way I'm walking around looking this dad."pouted Vinyl.
"Yeah,it definitely doesn't say you kid.Got any ideas of your own?" He asked
"I think I want it short like mom's but spiky like you dad."she replied. Unlike the last one,this hairstyle only took 5 minutes and both liked the results.

At the parade 1 hour later

The parade was packed with all kinds of interesting treats and creative looking floats. One particular one that caught Vinyl's eye was right behind the band's float. It was an old mid-evil looking themed thing with a castle background and a dragon sticking out of it.She didn't know exactly how to describe the way the teen stallions standing on it looked but to say they looked odd would definitely be an understatement.She ignored them for the time being to watch her friend's band perform.

Octavia stepped into the center spotlight looking sweaty and nervous but calmed down a little when she saw her friends Vinyl and Neon not to far off in the crowd giving them cheers of encouragement. She breathed in calmly and let everything go as she played her cello solo. At first she was worried when the crowed went silent but when they cheered a shiver of relief and happiness washed over her.Vinyl herself was proud of her friend and she wasn't sure why but it looked like something glowed around her when the crowed started cheering. She shrugged it off as likely a faulty background light and would congratulate her when the weirdly dressed mid-evil float finished their performance. She decided to hop on her dad's back for a better view.

First the mid-evil float's top castle pillars ignite which was pretty cool. It was what happened next that completely blew Vinyl's mind.Despite their weird looks and even weirder lyrics the band completely rocked! At least it did to her ears. It was loud but with an awesome rhythm that reminded her favorite old school songs her dad let her listen to which was giving her a head rush. She loved mixing those songs on the DJ table back home. She then realized could definitely see herself mixing up things as loud as this with all styles of music. There was an odd chill up her spine as she continued to watched the band but she shrugged it off as the wind.

To her surprise,after a brief silence when the odd band ended everypony started to laugh at the group. Jumping off her dad's back she looked at him confused. Didn't they think the music was awesome to?

"Dad,why is everypony laughing at them like that? I thought they were cool."said Vinyl.
"Well most of these are college kids and I hate to say it but some can be just cruel like that. Growing up I've heard a lot wor-.He paused mid sentence and was staring at his daughter oddly. "When did that happen?"he asked
"What?" asked Vinyl

He didn't say anything but pointed to her flank grinning and to her surprise when she checked,there in all its glory was a cutie mark of two bridged eighth notes.
"Oh my gosh,oh my gosh,oh my gosh,no way! I have got to show this to Octavia and the guys."Vinyl exclaimed. She then dashed off to fine her friends. She didn't have to look far since she could see Octavia with an equally excited look on her face galloping toward her with the guys not far behind.
Another unexpected thing for her happened as they reached each other and stopped simultaneously shouting.

"I GOT MY CUTIE MARK!"they said at the same time.

True enough Octavia also had a cutie mark and it was a purple Treble Clef.

The duo and the rest of the band celebrated the rest of night at the local Donut shop to top off one of the best nights ever.

~ END~

Author's Note

I know I've got other things I should be concentrating on trying to update but I just had an itch to write something after reading the comic.You ever have something random or spur of the moment inspired in your head you don't wanna leave bottled up?
That's what this was and I hope you liked it.
Perish Nandermane is not an OC of mine but a background pony who played in Octavia's band in "The best night ever" episode.Both him and his fan name were on MLP wiki.
I described Vinyl Scratch's dad from the same frame of him seen in the MLP official comic #11. While everyone else decided to make clop of shining and cadence's college days from the comic,I decided to make this. Hope you liked it.
Any and all comment and criticisms are welcomed.