The lukewarm faucet water did little to quench Disco Lights’ thirst, but the still functioning parts of his mind forced his body to drink. The other part of his brain, the one that, at this point, was thinking more in blobs of color than in streams of words, protested the taste; he had been drinking beer the entire evening, so why stop now? In spite of this logic, the reasonable part of the decision making process, slowly succumbing to the haze in its own way, countered that, not only had he lost his wallet an hour ago, but his body needed the pure hydration that the water, though foul, would certainly provide. After all, he had spent way too much money on this show to pass out half way through.
Disco Lights was, of course, not his real name, and sucking water out of a faucet in a filth covered restroom in the basement of a Manehattan warehouse was not something he did regularly. But his bonus had been high this year, and with no mare-friend to spend it on, he had-- finally, after years of hoping-- been able to score a single ticket to the hottest event of the Manehattan music scene.
DJ Pon-3 had been adorning his walls, filling his computer and scoring his workouts for years, but he had never seen her in concert. He had not seen any of his favorites live, to be honest, though certainly not for any lack of trying. But now, in a dingy basement where the musk smelled of pure adrenaline, his dream had come true, and the stallion was not going to let the a single percent of the opportunity pass. So newly minted Disco Lights dove into the night, letting the beat carry his every decision. What he drank, who he danced with, and even what he referred to himself as were reflections of the moment; it was as if the mild mannered pony that had brought him to the club had dropped off a very different person. The feeling was like nothing he had ever encountered, and he was loving every second of it. The pressures of life were driven away by the thunder from DJ Pon-3’s speakers.
He left the washroom and fought back into the sweating throb of ponies, each step seemingly increasing the temperature of the room. It made him dizzy, but, wishing he had drank more water, the colt pushed on. Had Disco Lights been completely himself, he would have noticed the numbness in his extremities increasing as he pushed closer to the stage, but the sweltering, rank humidity, the flashing lasers and the beat-- that all knowing, throbbing, pulsing beat-- dragged him into a trance.
The colors in his mind burned brightly as he resumed dancing. Observers, had there been any remotely sober enough to remember, would have called his movements sluggish and clumsy, but he took no notice. Time, sound, and feeling all came together into one entity, and its warmth enveloped Disco Lights. As far as his brain could tell, the universe gave way to the sound of the music. He closed his eyes, trying to make sense of. . . anything. He could not. When his eyelids opened, a mare stood before him.
Her coat was a bright, dangerous shade of red, and it clashed horribly with a garishly purple mane. Her eyes were at the same time colorless and radiant, but speaking of nothing but pure, carnal desire. The physical body that carried Disco Lights buckled as his inner mind beheld her. Smiling, the mare strode towards the paralysed figure. His world had shrunk to hold her and the music. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else even existed.
The mare came within an inch of his face. Her smile grew wider, but her eyes narrowed. She closed the distance quickly and engulfed the stallion’s mouth with a deep, sensual kiss. Disco Lights closed his eyes and tried to focus, but, somehow, he could not make the connection to a consciousness of any type. His eyes slowly opened.
The mare was gone, but her scent, somehow distinguishable from that of the club, remained. He tried to turn his head to look for her, but nothing happened. Slowly, Lights began to realize that nothing he tried to do, in any part of his body, actually happened. He tried to shake his head, more out of desperation than anything else, but found himself unable. A sense of dread crept into his somehow clear conscious when he noticed foam pouring out of his mouth, and a look of concern from his fellow ravers.
He fell, slowly, heavily, to the floor, and landed with a wet thud. His mind had left the body before its head touched the concrete.
“You’re home early.”
Vinyl Scratch shut the door behind her and, as she always did, made sure it closed quietly. She no longer needed to, considering that the door opened into the penthouse apartment and no neighbors were around to be woken up, but old habits, especially those acquired in the days of sharing a floor with dozens of ponies on normal sleep schedules, die hard.
“You’re up late.”
Vinyl used magic to throw her bag on the table. She grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge and collapsed on a couch in the living room, the grey leather reflecting the shine of her white coat. She removed her goggles, tossed them aside, and massaged her temple. Her roommate, a grey earth pony wearing a white bathrobe, sat beside her.
“I only got back an hour ago, so I decided to finish packing before tomorrow.”
Octavia seemed flustered. This was certainly not out of the ordinary, given her perfectionist nature, but Vinyl was concerned all the same.
“You okay, Octy? How’d the date go?”
Octavia sighed, and stared off into space.
“Well you were certainly right about him being handsome. And quite the talented producer. . .”
Vinyl leaned in, mocking enthrallment.
“. . . but if there is one place I draw the line at, its wearing headphones on a first date.”
The unicorn put her hoof to her face and shook her head.
Octavia continued with a smirk.
“I suppose brains come at the expense of looks sometimes. But seriously, why so early? It’s barely two thirty.”
Vinyl smiled.
“Oh, I wanted to be here to see you off, so I cancelled the second part of the show. You’ll probably have some nice comments on your webpage tomorrow, just to let you know.”
Octavia raised an eyebrow. Vinyl exhaled loudly and leaned back into the couch. She looked at the ceiling, then closed her eyes.
“Another OD.”
This time it was Octavia that put her head in her hooves.
“I’m sorry, Vinyl. . .”
The DJ cut her off.
“Ya know, it isn’t even that the show got cancelled that’s upsetting me. It’s just. . . never mind. You’ll think I’m being dumb.”
The cellist’s eyebrow rose again.
“Yeah, you always think I’m dumb, don’t you? I dunno. It’s like, you’re here for the music, and I’m here to make it happen, right? So why do you need drugs to make the experience better? Shouldn’t the tunes be enough? And if they aren’t, then what am I doing up there, ya know?”
Octavia slid across the couch and embraced her long time friend.
“Vinyl, you are the most amazing performer in Equestria. Don’t give me that look,” she added, noticing Vinyl’s disbelieving look, “you know it’s true. You can’t satisfy everypony.”
“But that’s just it, Octy, I need to satisfy everypony. The first show I ever went to was Ferry Horsten. He rocked that show, man. I mean really, really rocked it. I was stone sober that night, and I had the best time of my life. You know why they call it “trance” music? Because, when it’s perfect, and you hit that high, you never, ever want to come down. That is what I want for everypony that sees my shows. But I can’t give it to them when they’re out of their minds on rock salts.”
Octavia yawned, and looked at the clock on the wall.
“I’m sorry, Vinyl, but you just can’t please everypony. And I’m sure that for every on on drugs, there were ten in a trance that you created for them. Now I need to get some sleep,” she said, rising from the couch. “My train leaves at nine.”
“Send me a postcard. One of the three that I don’t have from Phillydelphia, please.”
“Goodnight, Vinyl. Don’t let this bother you, okay?”
“Yeah. Goodnight.”
Vinyl Scratch remained seated as her friend left the room. She lay down on the couch and stared out the skylight above the living room. The her coat stuck to the leather, reminding her again why she hated this particular couch, chosen by Octavia to match the contemporary style of their shared home. She hated grey.
“Well, not Octy grey. But all the other types, suck.”
Her eyes closed, and she tried to calm down. It usually didn’t take her long to crash after a show, but her thoughts raced. She thought back to the final moments of the show.
Things had gone smoothly, for the most part. No tech problems, the audio was sound (a pun she used far too often, she admitted) and the crowd was buzzing. She like the smaller venues, as the ponies she entertained were right on top of her, making the DJ feel like she was along for the ride. Even better was the fact that, with less people around, she was comfortable trying some newer stuff out; tonight, for the first time, she sampled the portion of “Nothing But the Beat” that she’d finally finished. The track was as close to her baby as she thought she’d ever had; its beat had been pulsating through her grey matter for years. The name was derived from the sentiment she shared with Octavia-- she wanted the track to cause a high that nobody would take a pony hours to come down for. And, so far, the song was living up to its billing. When it was ready, the moment would really, finally, be just about the beat.
And so she let some of it loose at the club that night.The crowd had reacted as she’d expected-- it went nuts.
And then, something strange happened.
It was not that big of a deal, but enough for Vinyl to notice that something was amiss. Her basic light package for the night-- when she wasn’t playing videos for specific tracks, that is-- was the trademark cobalt of her mane, with some green strobes thrown in. It should have been playing when she sampled “Nothing But the Beat,” but, for a brief second, everything changed to a garish, sharply defined red. Vinyl had turned to her stage manager to inquire about the sudden change, but she found herself unable to turn her head. She’d gotten stiff necks during performances before, but this was somehow different-- as if it wasn’t her muscles that were holding her back, but her inner self. In that moment of realization, just as she was about to cry out, everything went black. She lost all sense of being, save for her recognizance of the bass pulsing from all angles. She remained in this state, not sure of what was going on, until, somehow, she felt her hoof connect with the slider on the console. As she awkwardly faded out of the sampled track, things returned to normal. She checked her console and was surprised to see that her out of body experience had taken almost no time at all. Confused but content to write the experience off as one of those unexplainable moments, she turned back to the crowd. Her relief was cut short, though, as her eyes beheld a stallion, not fifteen yards from the stage, collapse in a heap.
The scene played behind her eyelids several times as she drifted into sleep. What had happened to her during those moments of darkness? Had she imagined it? And what connection did it have to the stallion’s overdose? She tried to shake the thought, but, ridiculous as it seemed, Vinyl was unable to convince herself that the timing was not coincidental.
Her sleep, on the sticky couch, was restless and came in spurts. Finally, after a few hours of trying, she opened her eyes in defeat. A pair of eyes glared down at her from the skylight.
She screamed and tried to jump off of the couch, but something held her to the leather. The eyes, and the bright red mare that belonged to them, flowed through the skylight, her purple mane flowing about as if it were underwater. Fangs bared, it descended on Vinyl, whose shriek of terror became caught in her throat as she fought to break free of whatever was holding her to face the wisp.
She made a final lunge off of the couch, but her momentum caught the pony by surprise and ship flipped onto the ground, face down into the shag carpet. She spun around, ready to defend herself anyway that she could.
The opportunity never came. Vinyl found herself in her room, a blanket tangled around her legs. Light streamed in from the parted curtains, revealing another gorgeous day in the busiest city in the world. Her clock read slightly before two in the afternoon.
When she realized that she was in no danger, save from her own imagination, the mare fell back in a heap on the ground and tried to control her breathing. Her heart pounded, as if she were controlling it from a turntable on stage, and her breath came sharply. Vinyl climbed back into the bed, wrapping the blanket tightly around her shaking frame. Just as she got a small hold of herself, though, her alarm rang, startling her enough to flip off of the mattress once more. She moaned.
“It’s gonna be that kind of day, isn’t it?”
“Nothing but the beat.”
“I’ll make you feel the heat.”
“Nothing but the beat.”
“And it tastes so, so sweet.”
The studio was cramped, hot, and dark-- just the way Vinyl Scratch liked it. It was unlike anything else in the apartment, which was why Octavia never set foot in it-- at least not without wearing shoes. Vinyl was hunched over her computer, her mixing program rendering the changes she had made to “Nothing But the Beat.” She had been in the studio for several hours, and was fairly pleased with the result.
“Nothing but the beat, baby.”
The lyrics were simple one liners, and were actually vocoded renditions of her own voice. She didn’t usually add a voice to her songs, and had never used her own voice before, but, again, this was a special project. And, thankfully, she had finally finished the drop.
The song was a throwback, for sure, reminding her of the marathon trance days in Stirrup, way before anything electronic had become popular in Equestria. She’d seen Ferry Horsten and Griffon van Buuren mix six hour live sets for sold out arenas, a feat she had always hoped to one day achieve herself.
The computer dinged as if it were a microwave, and Vinyl sniggered. She loved that sound, and was immensely proud of her ability to recreate it on the desktop. She took a deep breath, plugged the speakers into the audio port, and pressed play. The hard drive whirred to life as she kicked her hooves up on the desk.
“Nothing but the beat. . .”
The track was pure magic. Even though she held it in her mind for years, Vinyl had never heard it the way it was meant to be heard-- at over one hundred decibels. The bass cranked underneath a tidal wave of synth, while a high pitched keyboard drove what she liked to call the song’s narrative. She’d even woven in a line of Neighponese koto, a stringed instrument that took her months to learn. Woven was the perfect verb to describe it, she decided. The tapestry of the track was beautifully complex, colorful and, finally, complete. She leaned back further and slid her goggles down, trying to picture the scene when she blew the next crowd’s collective minds. The drop was coming, and she raised her arms in the air in anticipation. Without warning, the music morphed into the loudest, most violent feedback loop Vinyl had ever heard, startling her enough to cause the pony to lose her balance and fall backwards, bringing the chair with her. She smacked her head fairly hard, and it took a few seconds to comprehend what had happened.
“What the buck? Seriously. What the buck?”
Rubbing her head, she untangled herself from the legs of the chair and rose to her feet. The track was playing as it should have, and the software showed no irregularities. Lowering the volume, the scrubbed backwards and played the drop again. Again came the feedback, somehow just as loud as it had the first time. She killed the speakers, but the sound continued to reverberate through her skull, fading out with agonizing sloth. Frustrated, but not yet angry-- Vinyl Scratch rarely got angry; she let Tavi handle that-- the DJ again scrubbed backwards. This time, though, the program froze. Furrowing her brow, Vinyl waited for the software to sort itself out. When it refused, she hooved the restart key. As she touched it, the screen flashed a bright red, and Vinyl Scratch slumped, unconscious, into a heap.
She awoke in the center of a dance floor that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon. Her first thought was that it was empty, but, slowly, figures began to take shape around her. Ponies of all shapes and sizes, some wearing nothing, some in the bizarre fashions she recognized from decades old music videos. She could hear nothing save for a constant, yet far off, thumping of bass. Rising to her hooves, the unicorn tried to regain her bearings. She spun, slowly, trying to make sense of where she was.
As the mass of ponies began to gain some solidity, Vinyl Scratch realized that they were all dead.
The creatures-- she lost the will to think of them as ponies-- ambled about, paying her no heed. She stepped backwards and bumped into something, causing the DJ to jump in fright. She turned, instinctively, and came face to face with a brown mare not much taller than she. The girl’s hair was falling out in places, and red splotches-- some expanding into festering wounds-- covered her face. Her eyes held no life and her mouth, where it was not consumed by rot, hung agape.
Vinyl screamed. She turned to run, but found herself boxed in by more of the abominations. Colts, mares, even some fillies and the odd griffon blocked her path. The blood dripping from the noses of many splashed on her coat as she tried to push a way through the mob. More ponies had needles still dangling from their legs. Others spasmed and foamed at the mouth while she trudged by. The horde made no attempt to stop her, but it did little else, and her progress, though she had no goal in mind, was slow.
She kept fighting the horde, stepping on toes and shoving ponies down until a small clearing appeared. She jumped for it and came face to face with another mare.
“You!”
The demon from her dream stood, motionless, her mane whipping about, her eyes staring intently at nothing in particular. After an agonizing few heartbeats, the creature turned to face Vinyl Scratch. It said nothing.
Vinyl screamed at it.
“What the hell are you!”
The creature turned its head as if it were puzzled. It regarded Vinyl for a second and then took a slow, measured step forward.
I DO NOT KNOW.
The voice exploded inside Vinyl’s mind, as if the creature had embedded one of DJ-Pon3’s speakers in the DJ’s cerebellum. Vinyl clutched her temple and sank to the ground.
I EXIST WHERE YOU CREATE ME. I AM THE TRANCE THAT YOU DEVOTE YOURSELF TO. I AM. . .
The voice paused. Vinyl had closed her eyes, but found the strength to open them and glance at the monster. She noticed that her eyes and ears were bleeding.
I AM THE BEAT!
This self actualization seemed to motivate the creature, and the body of the mare it manifested in leaned down next to Vinyl. It again regarded her carefully, stroking her mane as it did.
I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. . . IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU DESIRED? TO HAVE YOUR CREATION GIVE YOU CONTROL OVER THOSE THAT WORSHIP YOU?
Vinyl wiped the tears and blood out of her eyes, allowing her to gaze at the creature.
“What? No! That isn’t what I wanted at all! I wanted them to fall into a trance. . .”
AND THESE. . . CREATURES AROUND YOU PREVENTED YOU FROM DOING SO?
“These creatures are ponies! And they’re dead! Or, hell, I don’t know what they are! How could they have. . .” Vinyl paused as the words exited her lips. Her eyes grew wide in horror.
“You killed them! You killed these ponies!”
NO, VINYL. YOU KILLED THEM.
“What! No! I never killed anypony!”
THINK, VINYL. YOU WERE UNABLE TO BRING THEM INTO YOUR TRANCE, SO THEY FOUND THEIR OWN WAY. YOU HAVE FAILED THEM, VINYL SCRATCH.
Vinyl was now sobbing on the floor, her voice growing hoarse and panicked.
“No! I try to help people! I try to. . .” She struggled for a phrase, but, deep in the recesses of her mind, she knew that none would come. Her heart began to beat faster than any track in any of her setlists. She looked up at the creature. It smiled back at her.
BUT NOW, DJ-PON3, YOU WILL GIVE THE PONIES WHAT THEY WANT. YOU WILL GIVE THEM WHAT YOU WANT. YOU WILL GIVE THEM. . . ME.
The mare leaned down to kiss Vinyl Scratch. It did so as lustily as anyone had ever kissed the unicorn. As it pulled back, Vinyl looked up with tears in her eyes. A smile crept across her face.
She finally had her chance.
The lights of the Las Pegasus Coliseum dimmed, sending the crowd into a frenzy. They had waited for hours for this moment, and no amount of has been or up and coming opening act was going to sap their collective energy. Like a wave of organic tissue, the mass pulsed up and down feverishly.
A pair of goggles appeared on the massive screen behind the stage, and the eruption shook the building to its foundations. A bass line began to leak out of the speakers, and strobes of purple and red swirled about. Finally, as the tension came to rest on a knife’s edge, a red spotlight illuminated DJ-Pon3 on stage. She smiled.
“Nothing but the beat, baby.”
