Operation: Dethrone IIby ThesnakeroxChaptersChapter 1: MainstreamChapter 2: The CatsChapter 3: Game PlanBonus Chapter 3.5: WHAT?!Chapter 4: DnB's ConcertChapter 1: MainstreamVinyl Scratch stood behind her turntable, ready to perform. She placed a hoof on a record and shouted into her microphone “Hello everyone, and thank you all for coming…” when she realized that nopony had seemed to be paying attention. She put her glasses up to get a better look at the crowd, and much to her astonishment, there was no crowd there. What happened? Vinyl thought to herself. Had everypony suddenly disappeared? Was her music finally becoming too mainstream for them all? The latter was what Vinyl feared most. Many ponies appreciated her music for its uniqueness. But the previous EDM artist had failed because all of his tracks, in the end, proved to have something in common that made them a bit boring, and they no longer stood out from the other EDM songs. Would this be her fate? Vinyl had yet to find out. She decided, since nopony had shown up for at least an hour, to pack her things and leave. She was putting away the last of her loop records when something bizarre happened. A mouth with four teeth suddenly appeared in the sky. It laughed and said, “Well, well, well…another mainstream artist to take down here…” Mainstream. Just when vinyl was thinking about that accursed word, the mouth had mentioned it. “You have until July 25th to hold the top spot to the best of your ability,” the mouth said. “After that, Operation: Dethrone II begins.” This is a bad omen… Vinyl thought to herself. This huge mouth of evil was clearly representative of a new artist coming to Equestria. And from the looks of it, its music would possess great power. Vinyl had to get writing immediately. Meanwhile, the mouth shrank and turned out to be a glowing white cat. The cat wore headphones and stood on two feet, making it almost humanlike. It had simple features, but probably the most remarkable thing of all was that it had no eyes and no nose, yet it could see and smell perfectly. It also floated in mid-air, so it didn’t plummet to the ground the instant it shrank. “EDM…has the last artist been notified?” A cat that looked almost exactly like the one that had spoken to Vinyl emerged from the darkness, walking on the clouds. The only differences were that he was slightly taller and his fur was a shadow-like black color. “Yes…” the white cat replied. “Shall I assemble the genres?” “Go ahead,” the black cat known only as Monstercat said to EDM. “Release them, and let the mainstream artists feel their power. Chapter 2: The CatsEDM whistled off into the sky. It seemed like a pointless thing to do; there was nothing to be seen in that direction. But then there were nine bright flashes, and nine more cats appeared. These ones were smaller than EDM, and they were all different colors. They still wore headphones, and they could still walk on clouds and float in mid-air. The cats were magenta, purple, orange, yellow, blue, cyan, green, red, and turquoise-green. Each color represented the different sub-genres of Electronic Dance Music: Drumstep; Dubstep; House; Electro; Trance; Nu Disco; Hard Dance; DnB, or Drum and Bass; and Glitch Hop, respectively. This was what had kept Monstercat’s music from becoming mainstream for so many years-the diversity of genres meant that there was always something new to listen to. “Let’s do this!” the red cat yelled, and he clapped his hands loudly. “I’m ready to go kick some tail today!” “Now, hold on there,” Trance calmly interrupted. “We need instruction from Monstercat and EDM first. They are the leaders after all.” “Fine,” DnB grumbled. “I’ll get my fight on later.” “Listen up!” EDM yelled to the smaller cats. “We have a lot of work to do if we want Operation: Dethrone II to succeed. Your goal is not to write a large quantity of music, but instead you must write music of high quality…music that people-or ponies, in this case-would want to listen to over and over again. These tracks will become our sixteenth album.” “Now go!” EDM ordered. “Find inspiration, and write.” “Let’s do it!” DnB yelled in his best royal Canterlot voice. He jumped off the cloud he was standing on, did a front flip, and hit the empty concert hall floor with a loud THUD. Because of the power he possessed, much like EDM’s, he stood up unhurt. The others went off the cloud as well. Electro and House jumped off holding hands. The two best friends could never separate. Glitch Hop followed, with Drumstep, Dubstep, Trance, and Nu Disco all making their descents in their own ways, with their own tricks. Hard Dance was the last to go down. He pretended to lose his balance and fall off the cloud, landing flat on his face when he hit the concrete. He then got up and said “Whew…good thing I’m indestructible” before meeting up with the others. Meanwhile Vinyl was backstage, still packing. When she heard the loud thuds of the monstercats hitting the ground, she thought out loud “What the hell?” and emerged from behind the curtains. There, in the middle of the spot where the audience should have been, she saw the eight monstercats in a circle. It was too late to unpack her equipment, and they didn’t look like they wanted to listen to music anyway. Chapter 3: Game Plan“What should we do first?” Electro asked. “Well, I say we take down Vinyl Scratch first…that mare needs to learn her lesson” was DnB’s answer. “We shouldn't be too hard on Vinyl,” Trance replied. “There are a lot of other artists that would be easier to dethrone. “Hey…I hear Octavia Melody is a good target,” Glitch Hop chimed in. “She doesn't do EDM, but classical is still a bit mainstream around here…” “Classical could kind of be considered EDM in our group” Hard Dance said, before yelling up to the sky “Hey EDM! Get down here!” EDM descended from the cloud, with Monstercat following. “What’s up?” EDM asked. “We have a job for you too” Drumstep replied. “We need you to make a few classical pieces that will blow Octavia Melody and the Ponyville Symphony Orchestra off the list of dethrone targets. It’ll be a turkey shoot.” “I’m on it.” EDM then flew off into the distance, with multiple glowing white instruments floating around him. Monstercat was left to handle the rest of the group. “So…what’s the plan?” he asked. “We’re going to tackle some of the smaller artists first. Then we can try to get Vinyl” Dubstep explained. “Should we have the singles come too?” House asked. “Nobody-” he cut himself off. “Nopony has heard from them yet. They might just be the ones to get this started.” “Good thinking,” Monstercat replied. With that he snapped his fingers and six more cats appeared. These cats were even smaller than the EDM sub-genres. Two were Drumstep’s color, two more were Glitch Hop’s color, one was Dubstep’s color, and one was EDM’s color. The first up was a drumstep cat. He had a jetpack with two metal wings attached to it on his back, always left running. No matter what, he was ready to fly, hence his name being Flight. The next was another drumstep cat, who had feathered wings on his back. Unlike Flight’s, these wings didn’t come off. This cat could also use them to fly. He was known as Halcyon. After Halcyon was a glitch hop cat. This one had a tux on, with a distinct green tie. He was also holding a saxophone, and his four sharp teeth were gone. He was known as Toothless Hawkins, and he commanded the one and only robot jazz band. The next one looked incredibly fierce. He was another glitch hop cat, and his teeth glinted in any light source seen. He also held two sharp knives in his hands, which he would be completely merciless with in combat. He was known as Razor Sharp, or just “Razor” for short. The only dubstep cat in the single group was next. He had a distinct purple haze around him, and he usually sat cross-legged, levitated off the ground. He was also best friends with Trance, and they were meant for each other with his name being Calm Down. The last cat was an EDM cat, and he possessed powers that cannot be imagined by anyone. The only thing special about his appearance was that his headphones had a microphone, but behind that was a soul that could not be broken. He was known only as Forever. These six cats represented the best music that was heard back in the human world, and their powers would be a great help to Operation: Dethrone II. Toothless Hawkins was the first to speak, asking “What’s the situation?” Monstercat answered “You all know how to perform music other than your own, right?” “Of course!” Razor shouted, twirling his two blades. “Good” was Monstercat’s reply. He then casted a spell, and before anypony knew it each cat had a bag of bits in their hands. “Use these to rent out whatever concert halls you can perform in. We have 15 days until the mission begins, so you need to get moving fast. Got it?” “Yeah!” all the other cats replied at once. The money was put into invisible inventories, and all of the felines dashed off in different directions. As Monstercat watched them run off, he said “Now to organize a tour of my own…” Monstercat pulled a map of Equestria out of his inventory, with a path drawn over it in black marker. “Perfect” he said under his breath after thoroughly analyzing the path. Bonus Chapter 3.5: WHAT?!DnB was not having a good time in Ponyville. Ponies were whispering to each other, and he could only assume they were wondering about this red headphone-wearing cat who walked on two feet all the time. Still, he kept his cool and proceeded to the concert hall. When he found the rental stand, DnB walked over to it and applied to reserve the hall for a concert. He had a bit of an argument with the stallion behind the booth, asking “What do you mean, ‘I can’t have a concert here because I’m a cat’? I’ll have you know that back in the human world I’ve played music for a million fans! I reckon that that’s more people than there are ponies in Ponyville!” This continued on until DnB finally defeated the pony and at a cost of 150 bits he was walking away with a rental form and an armful of blank posters and flyers. After using magic to automatically print on all the means of advertising, he saw that there were some flyers pinned with pictures of Toothless Hawkins on them. This improved his mood, with him saying “Well…looks like I’ve got a bit of a competition…” He then laughed to himself and said to the poster “Well done, Hawkins. Well done.” DnB was now pinning posters to places like telephone poles and other public structures. He usually placed them next to the ones belonging to Toothless Hawkins, showing that both of them were under the Monstercat label. DnB was almost done putting the last poster up when Vinyl was brave enough to approach him. Big mistake. Vinyl slowly walked up to DnB, recognizing him as one of the cats she saw at her failed concert. DnB made himself look like he had had a frustrating day by tensing his muscles, but Vinyl didn’t pay attention to it. One thing she was unaware of, though, was the fact that DnB’s kitty sense was tingling. Vinyl was about to open her mouth and ask “Weren’t you the one I saw at the concert hall?” when DnB turned around and yelled “WHAT?!” in Vinyl’s face. Vinyl was so scared by DnB that she immediately turned and ran off, not even able to say “Sorry” and instead she let out a mouse like squeak. DnB chuckled with delight and said to himself “Oh, I’m going to be here for the rest of my life…” He then finished pinning the poster up. When DnB was done he stood back and congratulated himself on a job well done. He picked up whatever supplies were left over and he walked along to nowhere in particular, without much of a care in the world. Chapter 4: DnB's ConcertDnB was all set up in the Ponyville Concert and Rave Hall, with Electro and Trance helping him out. The concert was ready to begin, so DnB started by picking up a microphone and introducing himself and the other two cats on stage. He then got behind a drum set and a silence filled the hall. Electro started up the synth board in front of him and Trance powered up his. Music started playing, and it was really nothing impressive at first. Ponies were conversing amongst themselves, asking questions like Why do their turntables not have records? What is the red one doing just sitting there? and Is this all their music has for us? The song had gone about a minute in and the mysterious synth sounds were accompanied by the rapid tapping of DnB’s hi-hat. Everypony was now expecting a buildup, and they got a buildup indeed. After a minute or so of tapping the hi-hat, DnB began hitting the tom and the snare. The synths began to grow louder and intensify as well, and at just the right moment a drop hit. All the noise suddenly dropped out, and then DnB did a bit of a drum riff and the music was at the max. The synths were creating sounds, but not like the typical wubs that you would hear from Vinyl’s dubstep. These sounds were completely out of the ordinary, like nothing anypony had ever heard. Not to mention DnB’s live drumming was incredible. The drumsticks were glowing, and they were being swung back and forth through the air so fast that their blurring almost completely obstructed the view of DnB. Flames burst from the drums each time they were hit. The floor shook. DnB played faster. Then suddenly everything fell to a near silence. All that was left was the rapid tapping of the hi-hat and the slightly eerie sounds from Electro and Trance’s synth boards. The song then faded out. After about a half hour or so of songs like this DnB closed the concert by saying into the mic “Thank you all so much for listening and watching! Unfortunately we’ve just about run out of time and we need to make way for Vinyl Scratch’s performance, but if you want to hear more then go to Hawkins’ concert, which is in just two days! We are also on EquestriaFilms and EquestriaSocial, so check us out there as well. I’m DnB, and I bid you all a good evening!” With that the three cats packed up and went backstage, everypony in the audience cheering. Behind the curtains Electro was putting some of his music on through his headphones, Trance was meditating, and DnB was grabbing a cloth and wiping the sweat off his forehead. The cats were all sitting on the floor-no fancy lounge chairs like the ones that were normally associated with their concerts. Suddenly a door opened with a creak.
Chapter 1: MainstreamVinyl Scratch stood behind her turntable, ready to perform. She placed a hoof on a record and shouted into her microphone “Hello everyone, and thank you all for coming…” when she realized that nopony had seemed to be paying attention. She put her glasses up to get a better look at the crowd, and much to her astonishment, there was no crowd there. What happened? Vinyl thought to herself. Had everypony suddenly disappeared? Was her music finally becoming too mainstream for them all? The latter was what Vinyl feared most. Many ponies appreciated her music for its uniqueness. But the previous EDM artist had failed because all of his tracks, in the end, proved to have something in common that made them a bit boring, and they no longer stood out from the other EDM songs. Would this be her fate? Vinyl had yet to find out. She decided, since nopony had shown up for at least an hour, to pack her things and leave. She was putting away the last of her loop records when something bizarre happened. A mouth with four teeth suddenly appeared in the sky. It laughed and said, “Well, well, well…another mainstream artist to take down here…” Mainstream. Just when vinyl was thinking about that accursed word, the mouth had mentioned it. “You have until July 25th to hold the top spot to the best of your ability,” the mouth said. “After that, Operation: Dethrone II begins.” This is a bad omen… Vinyl thought to herself. This huge mouth of evil was clearly representative of a new artist coming to Equestria. And from the looks of it, its music would possess great power. Vinyl had to get writing immediately. Meanwhile, the mouth shrank and turned out to be a glowing white cat. The cat wore headphones and stood on two feet, making it almost humanlike. It had simple features, but probably the most remarkable thing of all was that it had no eyes and no nose, yet it could see and smell perfectly. It also floated in mid-air, so it didn’t plummet to the ground the instant it shrank. “EDM…has the last artist been notified?” A cat that looked almost exactly like the one that had spoken to Vinyl emerged from the darkness, walking on the clouds. The only differences were that he was slightly taller and his fur was a shadow-like black color. “Yes…” the white cat replied. “Shall I assemble the genres?” “Go ahead,” the black cat known only as Monstercat said to EDM. “Release them, and let the mainstream artists feel their power.
Chapter 2: The CatsEDM whistled off into the sky. It seemed like a pointless thing to do; there was nothing to be seen in that direction. But then there were nine bright flashes, and nine more cats appeared. These ones were smaller than EDM, and they were all different colors. They still wore headphones, and they could still walk on clouds and float in mid-air. The cats were magenta, purple, orange, yellow, blue, cyan, green, red, and turquoise-green. Each color represented the different sub-genres of Electronic Dance Music: Drumstep; Dubstep; House; Electro; Trance; Nu Disco; Hard Dance; DnB, or Drum and Bass; and Glitch Hop, respectively. This was what had kept Monstercat’s music from becoming mainstream for so many years-the diversity of genres meant that there was always something new to listen to. “Let’s do this!” the red cat yelled, and he clapped his hands loudly. “I’m ready to go kick some tail today!” “Now, hold on there,” Trance calmly interrupted. “We need instruction from Monstercat and EDM first. They are the leaders after all.” “Fine,” DnB grumbled. “I’ll get my fight on later.” “Listen up!” EDM yelled to the smaller cats. “We have a lot of work to do if we want Operation: Dethrone II to succeed. Your goal is not to write a large quantity of music, but instead you must write music of high quality…music that people-or ponies, in this case-would want to listen to over and over again. These tracks will become our sixteenth album.” “Now go!” EDM ordered. “Find inspiration, and write.” “Let’s do it!” DnB yelled in his best royal Canterlot voice. He jumped off the cloud he was standing on, did a front flip, and hit the empty concert hall floor with a loud THUD. Because of the power he possessed, much like EDM’s, he stood up unhurt. The others went off the cloud as well. Electro and House jumped off holding hands. The two best friends could never separate. Glitch Hop followed, with Drumstep, Dubstep, Trance, and Nu Disco all making their descents in their own ways, with their own tricks. Hard Dance was the last to go down. He pretended to lose his balance and fall off the cloud, landing flat on his face when he hit the concrete. He then got up and said “Whew…good thing I’m indestructible” before meeting up with the others. Meanwhile Vinyl was backstage, still packing. When she heard the loud thuds of the monstercats hitting the ground, she thought out loud “What the hell?” and emerged from behind the curtains. There, in the middle of the spot where the audience should have been, she saw the eight monstercats in a circle. It was too late to unpack her equipment, and they didn’t look like they wanted to listen to music anyway.
Chapter 3: Game Plan“What should we do first?” Electro asked. “Well, I say we take down Vinyl Scratch first…that mare needs to learn her lesson” was DnB’s answer. “We shouldn't be too hard on Vinyl,” Trance replied. “There are a lot of other artists that would be easier to dethrone. “Hey…I hear Octavia Melody is a good target,” Glitch Hop chimed in. “She doesn't do EDM, but classical is still a bit mainstream around here…” “Classical could kind of be considered EDM in our group” Hard Dance said, before yelling up to the sky “Hey EDM! Get down here!” EDM descended from the cloud, with Monstercat following. “What’s up?” EDM asked. “We have a job for you too” Drumstep replied. “We need you to make a few classical pieces that will blow Octavia Melody and the Ponyville Symphony Orchestra off the list of dethrone targets. It’ll be a turkey shoot.” “I’m on it.” EDM then flew off into the distance, with multiple glowing white instruments floating around him. Monstercat was left to handle the rest of the group. “So…what’s the plan?” he asked. “We’re going to tackle some of the smaller artists first. Then we can try to get Vinyl” Dubstep explained. “Should we have the singles come too?” House asked. “Nobody-” he cut himself off. “Nopony has heard from them yet. They might just be the ones to get this started.” “Good thinking,” Monstercat replied. With that he snapped his fingers and six more cats appeared. These cats were even smaller than the EDM sub-genres. Two were Drumstep’s color, two more were Glitch Hop’s color, one was Dubstep’s color, and one was EDM’s color. The first up was a drumstep cat. He had a jetpack with two metal wings attached to it on his back, always left running. No matter what, he was ready to fly, hence his name being Flight. The next was another drumstep cat, who had feathered wings on his back. Unlike Flight’s, these wings didn’t come off. This cat could also use them to fly. He was known as Halcyon. After Halcyon was a glitch hop cat. This one had a tux on, with a distinct green tie. He was also holding a saxophone, and his four sharp teeth were gone. He was known as Toothless Hawkins, and he commanded the one and only robot jazz band. The next one looked incredibly fierce. He was another glitch hop cat, and his teeth glinted in any light source seen. He also held two sharp knives in his hands, which he would be completely merciless with in combat. He was known as Razor Sharp, or just “Razor” for short. The only dubstep cat in the single group was next. He had a distinct purple haze around him, and he usually sat cross-legged, levitated off the ground. He was also best friends with Trance, and they were meant for each other with his name being Calm Down. The last cat was an EDM cat, and he possessed powers that cannot be imagined by anyone. The only thing special about his appearance was that his headphones had a microphone, but behind that was a soul that could not be broken. He was known only as Forever. These six cats represented the best music that was heard back in the human world, and their powers would be a great help to Operation: Dethrone II. Toothless Hawkins was the first to speak, asking “What’s the situation?” Monstercat answered “You all know how to perform music other than your own, right?” “Of course!” Razor shouted, twirling his two blades. “Good” was Monstercat’s reply. He then casted a spell, and before anypony knew it each cat had a bag of bits in their hands. “Use these to rent out whatever concert halls you can perform in. We have 15 days until the mission begins, so you need to get moving fast. Got it?” “Yeah!” all the other cats replied at once. The money was put into invisible inventories, and all of the felines dashed off in different directions. As Monstercat watched them run off, he said “Now to organize a tour of my own…” Monstercat pulled a map of Equestria out of his inventory, with a path drawn over it in black marker. “Perfect” he said under his breath after thoroughly analyzing the path.
Bonus Chapter 3.5: WHAT?!DnB was not having a good time in Ponyville. Ponies were whispering to each other, and he could only assume they were wondering about this red headphone-wearing cat who walked on two feet all the time. Still, he kept his cool and proceeded to the concert hall. When he found the rental stand, DnB walked over to it and applied to reserve the hall for a concert. He had a bit of an argument with the stallion behind the booth, asking “What do you mean, ‘I can’t have a concert here because I’m a cat’? I’ll have you know that back in the human world I’ve played music for a million fans! I reckon that that’s more people than there are ponies in Ponyville!” This continued on until DnB finally defeated the pony and at a cost of 150 bits he was walking away with a rental form and an armful of blank posters and flyers. After using magic to automatically print on all the means of advertising, he saw that there were some flyers pinned with pictures of Toothless Hawkins on them. This improved his mood, with him saying “Well…looks like I’ve got a bit of a competition…” He then laughed to himself and said to the poster “Well done, Hawkins. Well done.” DnB was now pinning posters to places like telephone poles and other public structures. He usually placed them next to the ones belonging to Toothless Hawkins, showing that both of them were under the Monstercat label. DnB was almost done putting the last poster up when Vinyl was brave enough to approach him. Big mistake. Vinyl slowly walked up to DnB, recognizing him as one of the cats she saw at her failed concert. DnB made himself look like he had had a frustrating day by tensing his muscles, but Vinyl didn’t pay attention to it. One thing she was unaware of, though, was the fact that DnB’s kitty sense was tingling. Vinyl was about to open her mouth and ask “Weren’t you the one I saw at the concert hall?” when DnB turned around and yelled “WHAT?!” in Vinyl’s face. Vinyl was so scared by DnB that she immediately turned and ran off, not even able to say “Sorry” and instead she let out a mouse like squeak. DnB chuckled with delight and said to himself “Oh, I’m going to be here for the rest of my life…” He then finished pinning the poster up. When DnB was done he stood back and congratulated himself on a job well done. He picked up whatever supplies were left over and he walked along to nowhere in particular, without much of a care in the world.
Chapter 4: DnB's ConcertDnB was all set up in the Ponyville Concert and Rave Hall, with Electro and Trance helping him out. The concert was ready to begin, so DnB started by picking up a microphone and introducing himself and the other two cats on stage. He then got behind a drum set and a silence filled the hall. Electro started up the synth board in front of him and Trance powered up his. Music started playing, and it was really nothing impressive at first. Ponies were conversing amongst themselves, asking questions like Why do their turntables not have records? What is the red one doing just sitting there? and Is this all their music has for us? The song had gone about a minute in and the mysterious synth sounds were accompanied by the rapid tapping of DnB’s hi-hat. Everypony was now expecting a buildup, and they got a buildup indeed. After a minute or so of tapping the hi-hat, DnB began hitting the tom and the snare. The synths began to grow louder and intensify as well, and at just the right moment a drop hit. All the noise suddenly dropped out, and then DnB did a bit of a drum riff and the music was at the max. The synths were creating sounds, but not like the typical wubs that you would hear from Vinyl’s dubstep. These sounds were completely out of the ordinary, like nothing anypony had ever heard. Not to mention DnB’s live drumming was incredible. The drumsticks were glowing, and they were being swung back and forth through the air so fast that their blurring almost completely obstructed the view of DnB. Flames burst from the drums each time they were hit. The floor shook. DnB played faster. Then suddenly everything fell to a near silence. All that was left was the rapid tapping of the hi-hat and the slightly eerie sounds from Electro and Trance’s synth boards. The song then faded out. After about a half hour or so of songs like this DnB closed the concert by saying into the mic “Thank you all so much for listening and watching! Unfortunately we’ve just about run out of time and we need to make way for Vinyl Scratch’s performance, but if you want to hear more then go to Hawkins’ concert, which is in just two days! We are also on EquestriaFilms and EquestriaSocial, so check us out there as well. I’m DnB, and I bid you all a good evening!” With that the three cats packed up and went backstage, everypony in the audience cheering. Behind the curtains Electro was putting some of his music on through his headphones, Trance was meditating, and DnB was grabbing a cloth and wiping the sweat off his forehead. The cats were all sitting on the floor-no fancy lounge chairs like the ones that were normally associated with their concerts. Suddenly a door opened with a creak.
