The Sound And Fury From Seaddle

by Nic-Fit

Rating: teen
Tags: Octavia, Comedy, Slice of Life, DJ P0N-3, Lyra, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe
Length: 32042

The sound, the fury, the band that changed the face of music. This is the story of Mudhinney.

The sound, the fury, the band that changed the face of music. This is the story of Mudhinney.

What?! You've never heard of them?

Oh boy, are you in for a treat then! Lets start from the beginning...

Doesn't follow any sort of musical timeline accurately, bands, albums, and songs from times where they shouldn't exist are used. Well, if you're working from the actual Mudhoney timeline anyway.

Published 2014-03-19 13:20:04 UTC
Last updated 2015-03-18 15:50:51 UTC

Endtroducing

Chapter One : Endtroducing

In which Octavia first encounters the percussion section

~

Octavia stormed through the door. Not a second later, the door slammed shut behind her, rattling the entire house. She was angry, angrier than she had ever been before. For her, this was an unheard of say-anything-and-I-will-dismember-you level of fury. It was entirely justified too, at least she thought so,

"How could they pick that...that...IMBECILE over me?!" She exclaimed, venting her rage to the thin air around her.

"I poured my heart and soul into that composition," She slammed a hoof on the floor, tears now building up in her eyes, "But nooo, it 'strains the boundaries', its 'too wild', never mind the months I've spent on it."

She paused briefly, and began pacing around the kitchen in a effort to calm herself. It was useless, she wanted to be angry. She had never experienced a feeling like this. Sure, she had been mad before, but nothing like this!

"And then to present the prize to HIM!? He didn't even play his own song! Anypony could have gone up there and played Beethoofen's 5th Symphony. I tried to make something new and beautiful, but I guess the world just doesn't want that..."

The grey Earth pony sighed, her anger now giving way to depression. She had to fight it, she had never felt empowerment like what her anger had brought. She wanted more of it, and anything was better than sadly moping around for who knows how long. She had to do something about it. She was going to do something about it. Racing to the door, she grabbed her coin purse and left the house just as quickly as she had entered.

She lamented at how light the purse was, she was depending on winning that contest. She wanted her music to be heard all over, but the prize money would also have been really nice to have. Maybe she could just slip something out of the shop with her and hope nopony notices. "No, that's wrong. You know better. You were raised better." her mind told her.

"Yeah, you were also better than the other contestants, but that didn't seem to matter." A different part of her mind retorted, causing her anger to steadily rise again. "Stupid musicians guild, can't accept change..."

Now left feeling conflicted, her target finally came into sight: the record store. It suddenly occurred to her that she had no idea what she would be looking for once inside.

"...Well...you could just ask whoever is there..."

This was true, but she would have to calm down before she could talk. This was counter-productive, Octavia wanted to prolong her anger, but considering that she really, truly had no clue what she was doing, she was left with no choice, other than going home, but she was here now. A pause, and a few deep breaths later, she was through the door.

She had never been to a record shop before, she opted to just order her music and have it delivered, rather than having to search around for it, but she couldn't order an album if she didn't know what it was she wanted. The shop itself was large, but by no means spacious. Crates of records covered every available surface, leaving only a small path to allow movement. Luckily, she was the only customer at the moment, meaning she could avoid waiting and awkwardly brushing past anypony else in the narrow clearings.

Scanning around, she spied the counter, and the mare sitting behind it. "Okay, step one complete, you're inside, but you still have no idea what you're looking for. Step two, ask her for help" Mentally reading off her instructions, Octavia slowly made her way over to the check out, glancing occasionally at albums by bands she'd never heard of. Then again, until now, she never really listened to anything the world of modern music had to offer. She was genuinely excited by this prospect, the sheer volume of music out there that had yet to grace her ears. All she needed was a point in the right direction.

The pony behind the counter was a white unicorn with a blue mane, and despite the fact that it was cloudy, and she was indoors, a pair of sunglasses resting on her forehead. She greeted Octavia with a grin.

"Heya, Welcome! I've never seen you in here before, can I help with anything?" She spoke very fast, her grin growing wider.

Octavia winced a little at the mare's enthusiasm, but she had offered to help her, so she might as well continue as planned.

"Uhm, actually yes. I'm looking for something...angry." She hesitated, suddenly thinking this might not be such a good idea after all.

"Angry huh, world got you down?" The unicorn asked, not allowing Octavia to voice her hesitation. "Yeah, I sure have angry stuff, are you looking for anything in particular?"

"Well, I'm not particularly...knowledgeable, shall we say, with regards to music like this. However, as you put it, yes, the world has got me down today, and I really need some way TO VENT MY FRUSTRATION."

The unicorn stared at Octavia, a little bit shocked.

"...Sorry..."

"S'alright, you're certainly not lying. Angry stuff huh? I got a few ideas, follow me."

She came out from behind the counter, and led Octavia to a section of the store labeled "Punk and Alternitive". Octavia was sure she had heard the term "Punk" used before, to describe a few less-than-reputable individuals.

"My name's Vinyl, by the way, Vinyl Scratch." She said, glancing over to Octavia while simultaneously digging through the crates.

"Octavia" She returned, Vinyl smiled and nodded in response. "Thank you for your help, Vinyl, I'm truly lost with regards to music of this sort."

"Oh, its no problem at all, I love helping ponies find new music!" She replied, pulling a record out and laying it down with three others. She reached the back of the crate, and turned back to face Octavia, picking up the records with her magic.

"Okay, so I think you'll like these albums, at the very least they'll open your world to new sounds." Vinyl brought the records out to face Octavia, and pointed at the one on the left.

"This is Damaged by Black Flank, very angsty and shouty, and quite politicized too. Lotta meaning behind all the screams,"

Octavia had never heard screaming in music before, this should be...interesting to say the least.

Vinyl's magic lay the first record down, bringing the second one closer.

"Okay, this one is a bit different from the last one. This is II by the Mare Puppets. Its an odd mix of country, punk, and a whole bunch of other stuff too. And finally..."

She brought the final record over, stacking the second disc on top of the first.

"Big Mac, Songs About Bucking."

The album cover was, simply put, vulgar. Octavia wasn't sure about this one, and apparently her face made it known.

"Hey now, I know what it looks like, but trust me on this. You asked for angry, and this, my friend, is as angry as they come. You should prepare yourself though, its pretty abrasive."

Abrasive. That was a new term to her, music wise at least. She was a little unsure of ~~the unicorn~~ Vinyl's final choices, but Vinyl certainly knew what she was talking about a whole lot more that Octavia did.

"Very well, if you say these fit the bill, who am I to argue."

"Great! Just follow me back over then!" Vinyl picked up the small stack of records and placed them in a bag, then set them down on the counter top.

"That'll be 27 Bits."

...

"PONYFEATHERS! I didn't bring enough, What do I do, what do I do?"

"Duh, put one back."

After another internal conflict, and feeling the anger she'd suppressed building back up, she opened her mouth to speak.

"I...Uh..I..bleh..."

"Smooth..."

"I...uh, sorry, I only have 22 Bits, I'll just have to leave one here."

"Nonsense! its absolutely fine, take 'it, free of charge!" She levitated the bag to Octavia. "I mean, you seem to be having a pretty rough day, I don't wanna make it any worse. Consider it a gift!"

Octavia was a little taken aback by this kindness from somepony she barely even knew the name of, all in an effort to make her day better. This, led to her current state of emotions becoming even more unbalanced. She sniffed a little, and looked up at Vinyl.

"Hey, uh, you okay?" Vinyl said, looking rather concerned.

"Yes, I'm fine." Octavia replied, wiping a small tear from her eye, "I...thank you, Vinyl."

"Hey, it was my pleasure! Be sure to come back and tell me what you think once you've given those albums a spin!"

"I certainly will. Thank you, again."

And with that, Octavia left to walk home. Slowly. Very slowly, apparently having mellowed out a bit.

And with that, Vinyl continued her lunch. Rather quickly, being very hungry.

~

Turntable

Chapter 2 : Turntable

In which- OH HEY, NEW MUSIC!

~

The door opened, and closed again, much calmer than last time. A grey blur shot through the house and straight to the record player. Octavia slid her new records out of the bag and set about inspecting them.

Acquisition number one: Damaged by Black Flank. Even the cover of this record looked angry, it was a photograph of a stallion with a close shaven mane attacking his own refection in a broken mirror. She hurriedly removed the record from its sleeve and made her way over to the record player. She was so excited to hear something new, she almost missed something about the record that made it stand out from the others in her collection. Besides genre. She hadn't noticed it when it was in the sleeve, but in the light, the record was transparent purple.

"I didn't know you could get them in different colours! How many colours do they come in? Should I be collecting them?"

Snapping out of her mental tangent, Octavia put the disc on the turntable and let the needle drop. There was a steady drum beat, followed by a descending pattern.

"Oh my! This certainly is a new sound! I wonder how-"

She was interrupted by the vocalist on the record suddenly tearing right into the song.

...

Yep. Defiantly angry, no mistaking it. Octavia was captivated, this was uncharted territory for her. It was all so...untamed, wild, and, well, angry! She was fighting the urge to thrash around a little bit, it would be most un-characterful. But the fact the record made her want to amazed Octavia in itself, under no other circumstances had she ever wanted to do such a thing.

She had decided, this was a good record, even though she was only at the start.

~

Approximately 40 minutes later

Acquisition number two: II by the Mare Puppets. This one struck her as a little more odd than 'Damaged'. The album cover was a swirly mess of paint, possibly depicting a buffalo? Maybe a cow? It also crossed her mind how little sense it made to start listening to an album named 'II', as she assumed for there to be a II there should also be a I. Should she not start with I?

Octavia cast these thoughts aside, she was meant to be listening to new music, not questioning the ordering of the albums. The disc quickly took its place on the turntable, and the needle came down once again.

This album certainly was very different from 'Damaged'. It started out sort of similarly, but where as Black Flank's vocalist had been growly and aggressive, Mare Puppet's was more whiny and sounded irritated and desperate instead of furious. After the first track the albums quickly became even more different. A country tinge was very present in II, noticeable in a lot of the songs.

"Hmm...Yes. This one is good also." Octavia announced to nopony in particular other than herself. The instrumentation on this album was more complex and feeling, and the songs changed moods often, giving the album a varied sound.

~

Another short time later

Acquisition number three: Songs About Bucking by Big Mac. The one she was feeling apprehensive about. It was the cover putting her off, it was a bright, garish green, with a drawing of a mare who seemed to be....ahem...'busy'...thankfully only showing the side of the face.

As with the other two, the record made its way over to the player and started spinning.

The grey pony was not prepared for the noise that resulted.

It was like listening to pure aggression. Octavia was genuinely a little bit scared, especially considering the subject matters of the songs. Subjects like murder, drugs, and a myriad of other things. Each song was delivered in a scratchy sounding, shout, frightening blast. She imagined it was not to dissimilar to listening to sandpaper, or gravel.

But it was certainly different, to say the least. She would have to revisit it at some point.

It didn't really matter at the moment though. She was ecstatic, having just hear three albums from genres just a day ago she wouldn't even consider listening to, and she enjoyed it! Left wanting more, she cast her thoughts back to the current state of her finances. Or rather the lack of.

"Well, there's always next month," She sighed, "Always next month..."

She turned back to the record player. She wanted to hear them again. Octavia would've probably worn the albums out by the amount of plays that day alone, where it not for the early night she decided to have.

"Next month..."

~

Let It Slide

Chapter 3 : Let It Slide

In which a gig is attended

~

Three months is a long time if you think about it. Its a whole quarter of a year, a lot can change in that time. A lot had changed, for Octavia anyway.

Over the course of the last few months her taste in music had completely changed. She was way more 'Manticore Jr.' now, rather than 'Tchaitrotsky'. Thats not to say she didn't still enjoy her old stuff, it just wasn't particularly exciting anymore. Plus, her new collection outnumbered her old collection now anyway, so chances are if she even just picked something at random it would be one of her newer discoveries. This new taste she had acquired had begun to show itself, Octavia found herself wearing her faithful bow tie less and less, and band shirts a lot more. Band shirts. She blamed Vinyl for that development.

Speaking of which, Vinyl had very kindly offered Octavia a job at the record shop, and she couldn't accept the offer fast enough. It was perfect; her work had been slow and sporadic lately anyway, she would get to talk to ponies about music as part of the job, and she got to work with a friend in a place she enjoyed spending time at. Basically, Octavia was getting paid to do something she would probably have done anyway, if not from the other side of the counter.

~

It was a slow day at the record shop, which gave Octavia a chance to browse through the crates for something new. Again. It happens quite a lot. The Alternative and Punk section of the shop had sort of become an impromptu base of operations for her, every foray starting there, then expanding into the other sections. It would always go in an order, she'd look around until she found something interesting, then she'd take it to the store's record player and listen, and if she enjoyed it she'd buy it. A significant amount of her earnings were used in this process.

After five or ten minutes or so, she'd found something that looked interesting. 'In The Balloon Over The Sea' by 'Neutral Milk Stable'. The cover was an old timey painting of ponies at the seaside, but one of them had a drum instead of a head. Drum? Potato slice? Tambourine? Anyway, it looked interesting. She made her way over to the record player and put it down on the turntable. The first song was all acoustic, but had some weird sounding instruments she couldn't name. The singer had an odd voice, and he was singing about carrots and suicide. It was strange, but it wasn't bad. Then it went and got droney and oddly spiritual for a bit, and then changed again, this time a high energy distorted state of affairs. She wasn't sure what was going on, but it was enjoyable none the less, she would probably buy this one.

So she sat there contently listening, humming along to the melodies, working out the lyrics, picking apart chord progr-

"TAVI!"

Octavia jumped and spun around, finding an exasperated looking Vinyl had poked her head out of the office door. She pointed a hoof out to the shop front, and to the line that had formed at the counter. None of the ponies in line looked very pleased.

She turned back to Vinyl, sheepish grin on full display.

"Sorry..."

~

The queue was defeated about 10 minutes later, during which Octavia had learned: A. To pay more attention to her surroundings, and B. She never wanted to make eye contact with anypony she had annoyed again. Ever. It was pretty busy in the store after that, so she had stuff to do right up to closing time. She didn't mind, at least these customers weren't angry with her, and she could have a chat about music if any of them were feeling particularly talkative. She even managed to get some information about 'Neutral Milk Stable' from one of them. Apparently they are exactly as weird as they sound like they should be.

Soon enough it was time to start closing up. Yes, it was a few minutes early, but the shop was devoid of customers. Until one walked in anyway. A minty green unicorn was stood at the counter, smiling expectantly. Curiously, she had nothing to buy.

"Sorry, we're just closing up. Can I help at all?"

"Oh yes actually, I just came by to talk to Vinyl, but if you're busy packing up it can wait."

"No, its fine, I'll go get her."

Vinyl was usually in the small office behind the counter. Really, the reason Octavia worked there was to let Vinyl work in the office rather than the till. She always told Octavia how boring it was, but it meant Vinyl could do all the admin stuff here, rather than finishing up at work and then getting home to starting more work.

The office was much messier than usual, normally all the paperwork is at least on the desk. Or shelf. Or really what ever empty, flat surface presented itself. There was a large pile of papers in the center of the tiny room, with sheets littering everywhere else. There was, however, no sign of Vinyl anywhere.

"Uh...Vinyl?"

There was a light rustling as the pile of paperwork in the middle of the floor stirred. "...Ugh, leave me alone mom, I don't have to get up yet..."

OoooKaaaay...

Octavia silently approach the pile/pony with a sly grin. Reaching the target, she leaned in closer...

...

"Boo!"

The resulting noise produced by the white unicorn was comparable to the sound of a train being violently assaulted. Also to thank from her surprise wake up call, was that now, due to her jumping, she was stuck horn first in the ceiling. The final thing to emerge from this event were the stifled fits of giggling coming from the grey pony at the door.

"Yeah yeah, very funny. A little help, please?"

The laughter continued, if anything getting louder.

"Aww, come on! This is-pffft...This is really starting to-"

Vinyl had realized the ridiculousness of the situation she had found herself in, and was now left struggling to keep in a laugh. Thankfully, she was rescued from her brief skyward adventure by Octavia, who had finally moved from the door. Now back on Terra Firma, she let out the laughs that had built up.

"Vinyl! Vinyl!" Octavia managed between giggles and breaths, "Th-theres somepony here to see you."

"Okay, deep breaths, calm down. You too Tavi."

It didn't work, and Vinyl made her way to the door still chuckling, Octavia following behind after. The green unicorn was still waiting at the counter. Upon seeing Vinyl her smile widened and she cocked her head slightly.

"Having fun?"

Vinyl gasped a little, and then cleared the counter completely, taking out the other pony in a sort of tackle-hug combo.

"OhmygoshOhmygosh! Lyra! I've not seen you in forever!"

"Its great seeing you too, but I was rather enjoying the ability to breathe..."

"Heh, sorry..." The second awkward grin of the day appeared on Vinyl's face as she took a step back. "What brings you here, I thought you moved away?"

"Well, I did but it didn't really work out. I'm was meant to come back next week, but I've got tickets for Sonic Foal here tomorrow, so I decided to come back early."

"Ooh, Sonic Foal! You're so lucky, that show was booked out waaaaay in advance..." Vinyl sighed.

"Woah, slow down. I won them in a contest. Three of them. I stopped by to ask if you wanted to go, but I think I already know the answer."

"Oooh, thank you! I would love to go! Who else is coming?" Vinyl started bouncing on the spot gleefully, Sonic Foal had been on her 'watch live' list for a few years now, their shows were apparently exceedingly good, no nonsense affairs, with frequent improvisation and experimentation.

"See, thats the thing, I dunno. I was gonna go with Bon Bon, but she was all "I don't even like them" and I was all "Come on, it'll be fun!", then she was like "No." So now I have no idea, unless you have a friend who would like to come."

"Hmm..." Vinyl turned to face Octavia, who had gone back to sorting the shelves behind the counter. "PRIVATE TAVI!"

Octavia jumped, hitting her head on the shelf above. "Ow. Yeah?"

Vinyl scowled at her. Octavia sighed, and feigned a salute.

"Better!" Vinyl's expression softened back to a smile. "So Tavi, whadaya say? Want to come see Sonic Foal with us tomorrow? It'll be fuuuun!"

Octavia weighed the choice up. On one hoof she hadn't really listened to much Sonic Foal, but on the other hoof, she had liked what she'd heard, she wasn't doing anything otherwise, it would be free, and she's looking for new music anyway.

"Okay, why not. Sounds good!"

"Well then, I suggest you and Lyra get chatting! I'm going to clear up the office." With that, Vinyl returned behind the counter.

"..."

"Uh...hi..."

"Hey."

Awkward

~

Lyra, Vinyl and Octavia got to the venue pretty early, allowing them to use the bar before it was packed, if nothing else. It was a pretty small place, it looked like it would be maxed out at about 500 ponies, but it was a nice environment. While it was empty, anyway. It would be another 40 minutes before the support act came to the stage, a garage noise rock band by the name of 'Pony Galore', notable for using garbage cans instead of drums. That should be interesting.

Sonic Foal themselves should also be pretty interesting, they have a reputation for modifying their instruments, playing in strange tunings, and using odd methods to play the instruments, yielding different noises.

But there was still at least an hour until Sonic Foal took the stage, and that time has to be occupied somehow. Probably involving drinking.

"Sooo, Vinyl tells me you play the cello?" Lyra inquired.

"Oh yes," She replied taking a swig of her drink. "I've been playing for some years now. Do you play?"

"Not the cello, no, but I've been playing the lyre since forever. Maybe longer. We should jam some time, I'll get Vinyl to bring her drums."

"I didn't know she played the drums!"

"Oh yeah." Lyra paused to finish her drink. "She only really uses them to record samples for her electronic stuff, but she certainly knows her way around them."

"Huh..."

This left Octavia wondering what else she didn't know about her companions, she'd never really bothered to ask them anything.

"Note to self: get to know them better."

~

Soon enough the open act were on. It was exactly as predicted: noisy, different and fun. The bins in place of drums made for a nice departure from convention, even if musical convention wasn't really what anypony there was expecting. Octavia's biggest surprise, however, was just how loud it was. She used to play in an orchestra, that was loud. But the volume generated by just the 4 ponies on stage was mind boggling.

Soon enough, Pony Galore finished their set and trotted off stage. The crowd huddled closer to the stage in anticipation, the venue staff already bringing out Sonic Foal's equipment.

"Hey Tavi, me and Lyra are going to go up the front, you coming?"

This was a difficult choice for Octavia. This was her first gig, outside of classical performances (which were pretty different), and she wanted the full experience. However, she also knew that being at the front would likely be terrifying for somepony like her, it wasn't in her nature to thrash around a lot.

"Uh...I think I'll pass. Maybe I'll come down later..."

"Suit yourself, but its gonna be fuuuuuuuuuuuun!" Vinyl turned and left, with Lyra following afterwards, disappearing into the crowd.

~

About 5 minutes after they had left for the front, Sonic Foal took to the stage. The noise was almost deafening, and the band hadn't even started playing yet, it was all coming from the crowd. The cheers only seemed to get louder when they did start playing, the show could probably be heard for miles.

Octavia had found herself a nice spot next to the sound booth to watch the show from. The floor around the booth was raised slightly, giving her a good view, and a place to set her drink down. Two thing struck her from her vantage point: the first was the amount of movement the band had going on. Classical shows are very controlled affairs, and with most of the orchestra sat down, there wasn't a whole lot of room for moving around anyway. Sonic Foal were acrobats in comparison, running around, jumping, thrashing about, it made for quite the spectacle.

The second thing that struck her was the amount of moving the crowd was doing, especially at the front. Octavia had expected this from the stories Vinyl had told her about all the bands she'd seen, but it truly was a mesmerizing sight. The crowd rose and fell, it tore itself apart and flowed back together, it was like watching rippling water, or a shrub moving in the wind. She tried to find her friends from her spot, but the movement of crowd prevented it.

After an hour and a half, the show was coming to an end. The crowd showed no signs of slowing down, and were still as hypnotizing as ever. Octavia had decided, she was going to be a part of it before the show drew to a close. She made her way through the crowd, which was no easy feat considering how densely packed the venue was. Nearing the front, she began her search for Vinyl and/or Lyra, which was proving to be more difficult than expected, considering that the movement of the ponies around her put Octavia in a constant state of about-to-fall-over. It made it very difficult to focus.

Even if she couldn't find her friends, being at the front was thrilling. Terrifying, but thrilling none the less. The noise and movement made for an all out assault on the senses, leaving Octavia feeling disoriented, and a little bit sick, but content. Between songs, the moshing died down, but it was still just as loud. She took this brief break to get herself together, facing the front of the venue to get her bearings. As she did, the singer took the microphone.

"Ok guys, this is gonna be our last song for the night. We know you know it. We just wanna say thank you, and goodnight."

The band played the opening chords to the song. The concert goes reacted immediately, shouting and cheering louder than before. The drums kicked in, and that was it, the crowd was in full thrash mode. This left Octavia struggling to balance, She knew she just had to go with it, but she didn't even want to consider the consequences of falling over. Not only was the floor filthy, but there was a pretty large risk of getting trampled.

Then, something unexpected happened.

Vinyl had told Octavia about stage diving once before, when Vinyl had gone to see The U-Stallions. Some pony would jump off stage, and the surrounding unicorns would use their magic to carry them over the crowd and to the back. Octavia had never encountered it, until now. Things seemed to slow down when she noticed it, an orange unicorn had made his way onto the stage, and was in the process of vacating it. Right in her direction. She didn't really realize what was happening until it was too late. Recognizing the situation, she started to brace herself, only to take a hoof to the face as an award for her delayed reactions.

The grey pony swayed for a bit, muttered something under her breath and promptly collapsed on the floor, unconscious. In the middle of the stomping crowd. Away from her friends.

All things considered, it could probably have gone better...

~

Expressway To Yr. Skull

Chapter 4 : Exressway To Yr. Skull

Mystery train, Three way plane, Expressway....

To your skull

~

Octavia stirred groggily, slowly opening her eyes and glancing around, vision still a little hazy. She was in an unfamiliar room, its was large, manky, and poorly lit. She had no idea where she was, or how she got here. Plus, her head absolutely killed. She brought a hoof to her forehead in an effort to relieve the pain, only to be greeted by a nasty stickiness. Confused, she pulled her hoof away. It was red.

"Blood?"

"My blood?"

"Aaaaaaah. Aaaaaaaaaaaah."

"AAAAAAH!"

Panicked, she rolled over, and landed with a thud. She had apparently been laying on a sofa, though how and why were a mystery to her.

"Oh, where am I? How did I get here? Is some pony trying to kidnap me? Did- Did they try to m-murder me? What do I do, What do I do?!

Octavia's mental breakdown was interrupted by the sound of a door opening. She swung around to face the door, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble (which would be pretty useless, as that door was the only exit), only to be greeted by a friendly face.

Vinyl put on a massive smile, and lunged at Octavia, trapping the grey pony in one of her signature hugs/strangulations.

"OhmygoshTaviyou'reok!Weweresoworried!Ithoughyou'dreallyhurtyourselfwhenIsawyoubutI'msohappyyou'reok!"

"...Uh, thats great..." Octavia struggled to say, attempting and failing to process any of what Vinyl had just said at all, "But do you think you can ease up a little, I can't breathe."

"Heh, sorry..." A familiar awkward smile found its way to Vinyls face, only to be quickly replaced by a look of shock. "TAVI! YOU'RE BLEEDING!"

"Woah, calm down Vinyl, a first aid kit is on the way as we speak." Lyra said as she came in, stopping lean on the door frame. "How're you holding up?"

"Uh, not great, really. I have no idea how I... well I guess we, got here." Octavia glanced around the room. "Where even is here? How long was I out for?"

A third voice chimed in from behind the door, it was familiar, but Octavia couldn't quite place it. "You're just in the back rooms of the venue. We saw you lying on the floor, and couldn't really just leave you there, could we?"

A pale blue unicorn stallion entered the room, with a heavily beaten up guitar in tow. The voice now had a face it seems. "As for how long you've been out, I can't really say, but we found you out there about 10 or so minutes ago. Let me introduce myself, I'm No Wave. Your friends tell me your name is Octavia?"

No Wave, No Wave....she had heard that name before. But where. Then it hit her, the familiar voice, this No Wave character, the fact she was in the back room of this 'venue'. She let out a small gasp.

"You're from Sonic Foal!"

"Yep, at least I was the last time I checked. So then, Ms. Octavia, care to tell us how you ended up on the floor?"

"Okay, you know where you are and why, but what about how? Focus, you were watching the show, Vinyl and Lyra left for the front, and so did you after a bit. You got to the front and...THATS IT!"

"Well, I'd made my way to the front to try and find Vinyl and Lyra, but when I got there somepony jumped off the stage and hit me right in the face." Octavia explained, wincing as she brushed her new wound.

No Wave sighed, "Another stage diving accident? I swear these happen, like, every other show. Well, I'd like to apologies on behalf of Sonic Foal for this, Dissonance is just off finding you something for your head."

"Oh there's no need to apologize at all! I mean, you could've just left me out there on the floor, but I'm very grateful that you didn't. Its not like it was your fault anyway."

A tiny, tiny, shell pink pegasus mare came through the door, with a medical bag balanced on her back. "Point is," She said, sitting down next to Octavia and looking through the bag, "We all feel really bad about this, Hold still, this'll sting a bit."

She set about cleaning the wound on Octavia's head. It did, as promised, sting.

"Dissy is right, nopony has ever gotten hurt this badly at one of our shows before. Except that one time an amp stack fell on our manager, but that was pretty funny."

Octavia was about to question how it could have possibly been funny, but was stopped short by Dissonance. "Trust me. It was actually pretty funny."

"But anyway, we're really sorry about this whole thing. We've asked the venue to refund all your tickets for the trouble. Plus, we want you to have this, Octavia, to say sorry."

No Wave presented Octavia with a copy of the new Sonic Foal album. It had been signed by all the members.

"Vinyl here tells us you're somewhat of a record collector, we thought you'd like this. We all signed it too, plus its limited edition, check it out!"

Octavia slid the record out of the sleeve, revealing that it was marbled light pink in colour, with flecks of grey and white. It was a work of art in its own right.

"This is...I-I can't accept this! You've already done so much, if anything I owe you!"

"Nonsense, I can't let anypony leave a show feeling disappointed, let alone hurt! At any rate, I thought you could probably use some cheering up after what happened." No Wave offered a reassuring smile.

Octavia paused, glancing up at No Wave and Dissonance.

"Thank you so much, for everything. I mean it."

"She's getting emotional again." Vinyl whispered to Lyra. "She did it when I gave her free stuff too."

~

The three spent the next hour or so hanging out backstage with Sonic Foal. Vinyl had decided that 'hanging out with Sonic Foal" was probably the coolest thing to happen, ever. Many photos were taken. Many ever so slightly drunk conversations were had.

"Wait wait wait, lemme get this straight, you all play instruments, and you all like similar music, but you're not a band?"

Octavia, Lyra and Vinyl all nodded in unison.

"Pfft, thats dumb. You should totally start a band."

The drummer had a point, even though he was a buzzing a bit. It was pretty stupid that they weren't a band. To be fair though, Lyra and Octavia had only known each other for about 18 or 19 hours, tops. Still, it was something that should be considered.

"Oh, we really should!" Vinyl interjected. "That would be soooo fun!"

"Go for it, there's no reason not to, I mean, we did and it worked out pretty great."

"I would totally be up for that." Lyra said between sips of her drink.

"YESYESYES!" Vinyl pretty much exploded, turning to face Octavia with the biggest smile probably ever. "Taaaviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii?"

It would be pretty great. And, unlike normal, she couldn't really see any downsides. If it was really that bad, they could just stop. Unable to find a flaw, she decided.

"Yes. Yes, this is a good idea."

"YES! THIS IS HAPPENING!" Vinyl grabbed Lyra and Octavia into a group hug. "THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT EVER!"

And so, with the majority of the band members unable to move or breathe, the band was started.

~

Soon enough it was time to leave, the venue had closed for the night, plus the band needed to get going, unless they wanted to miss their next gig. Thank you's were exchanged, and the groups went their separate ways.

"I can't believe we just hung out with Sonic Foal!" Vinyl beamed, "And Tavi, can't believe you got a signed record! And I can't believe we started a band! This night has just been the coolest!"

"Yeah, its been pretty wild..." Octavia brought a hoof to her head in an attempt to ease the sharp ache she felt now that the painkillers had started to wear off. "I think I would like to go to the hospital tomorrow, though..."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, that cut looked pretty nasty..." Lyra replied, suppressing a yawn.

They continued along for a few more minutes in relative quiet, until Octavia broke off from the others.

"Well, this is my house. I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow. Goodnight!"

Having said her goodbyes, Octavia made her way inside, setting down her precious musical cargo, and headed straight for her bed. She was asleep in seconds.

~

Lyra and Vinyl continued on, slowly making their way back to the record shop. As it turned out Lyra didn't really have anywhere to stay, but Vinyl had said it was cool for her to crash in the living room above the shop.

Vinyl fumbled at the door, struggling to work it as a result of the tiredness/inebriation combo. Finally, the mechanism worked with a satisfying click. Proud of her victory, she pushed the door open and walked in. Alone.

~

Lyra grumbled a little in her sleep. On the side walk. Tiredness had gotten the better of her between Octavia's house and the record shop. It was going to be an uncomfortable night.

~

Enter the Lu-Tang

Chapter 5 : Enter the Lu-Tang

In which da ruckus is brought

~

It was a rainy morning in Seaddle. For some reason the weather team made it rain a lot in Seaddle, but everypony was used to it, really. It wasn't known as 'The Rainy City' for nothing, so its not like they didn't know what to expect.

It was just past 11 when Vinyl woke up. She was glad it was Sunday, the shop was closed on Sundays so she got a lie in, which was very much required today, what with last night's antics. She was feeling pretty sick, and there was a nagging feeling she had about...something, but what she remembered of last night was enough to counter the sickness, and she figured she probably just needed to check stock or something later. Vinyl rolled around in bed for a while, she had no plans to leave it anytime soon.

Her lazing was rudely interrupted by knocking from downstairs. Vinyl groggily rolled out of bed and made her way downstairs and into the shop, leaning on the banister on the way down. She opened the door that led to the shop front and looked out the glass door. Stood there knocking, was a dirtied, soaked Lyra. Vinyl opened the door and Lyra came in, and immediately tripped and fell in a puddle of her impromptu shower. She offered a weary look up at Vinyl.

"I hate everything."

~

Octavia was up at 7, same as any other day.

What was not the same, however, was the rather large cut on her head, and the left over feeling of being a little bit drunk. Drunk is not a feeling she is used to, and her injury really wasn't helping. Still, things to do, can't stay in bed forever.

After a quick shower, and some medicine for her head, she removed the bandages to see how the wound was holding up.

"Ouch...Well then, hospital it is."

She had forgotten that it was Sunday, and that the clinic didn't open until 9, which meant about half an hour of awkwardly standing around under any possible shelter from the rain. At least there was nopony else waiting so she could get treated pretty quickly.

Good news: No stitches!

Bad news: More stinging pain!

The doctor glued the wound closed and bandaged it up again, giving her some spare ones so she could change them. All that was left was her hangover, but she would just have to deal with it. She stepped back out into the rain and set about getting home at a brisk pace.

"Okay then, what have I got to do today? Well, I have that new Sonic Foal album to listen to, and...."

"Wow, is that really all? Guess I'll go over to Vinyl's then."

Octavia reaches her house and gets upstairs fast, quickly drying herself with a towel. Stupid umbrella, getting broken when needed. She made her way back to her room, and removed the special record from it's sleeve. Placing it gently onto the turntable, it started spinning in its flecked blue glory.

The first song starts. Its a mellow piece, almost droney, and very relaxing. The dynamic's suddenly change, the song becomes faster and eratic, with much more energy. She remembers this, it was the song they opened with last night. There were some very odd sounds worked into the song; ringing, almost bell like sounds and long, scratchy drawn out sounds. A glance at the liner notes revealed nothing out of the ordinary instrument wise. The band had to be doing something weird to them to get those noises. She wanted to know, new noises are always fun.

"You do know you were there watching the play this less than a day ago, right?"

Now that she thought about it, some of their equipment did have some off modifications. Things like tools wedged under the strings, and she thinks one of them was hitting their guitar with drum sticks. This presented a problem, she wanted to have a go at making these noises, but could she risk damaging her cello? It cost a lot, and really meant a lot to her...

"Stop worrying about this now and just enjoy the music."

~

"Why did you just leave me outside? Seriously, not cool!"

"I DIDN'T KNOW" I thought you came in with me! I was drunk, ok?!"

"Oh? And did you just forget about me this morning then?"

"...I'm still a bit drunk..."

The two arguing mares were interrupted by the sound of a ringing bell. Octavia had just come into the shop (Vinyl had forgotten to lock the door after letting Lyra in) and she was just...standing there, staring off into the distance.

"Uh, Tavi? Are you okay?" Vinyl asks, moving closer to her.

Octavia doesn't break from her trance, her eyes are fixed on the wall behind the counter, and she isn't moving from the spot.

"...That...album, the Sonic Foal one, from last night..."

"Mmmhmm, was it good?"

Octavia turned her head to face Vinyl, looking her straight in the eye with an emotionless face, it was slightly unnerving.

"It was life changing."

Octavia slowly made her way to the record player behind the counter, removing the aforementioned album from her bag. She put it on the player and started it, the music coming through the shop's sound system. The droney mellow intro passed, and then the dynamic change kicked in.

"Woah." Vinyl and Lyra said in unison.

~

What an album. DAMN, what an album.

The three mares listened to it about 5 or 6 times all the way through, back to back. It was that good. There was no doubt that they'd listen to it again later. It had defused the situation between Lyra and Vinyl, and chilled them both out. Octavia was already chilled out, she'd heard it first.

"Wow, I've not listened to an album I liked that much since Enter the...Lu...Tang..." Vinyl paused. "...Buck..."

"Huh?"

"Oh this is bad, very bad! Its Sunday, yeah?"

Lyra nodded.

"I'm meant to be in Manehattan tomorrow! I totally forgot!" Vinyl said frantically, quickly running up stairs and returning with a suitcase.

"Wait, why?"

"Method Mane from the Lu-Tang Clan caught one of my DJ sets a few months a go and said he was impressed, he asked me to guest at one or two of their shows. First one is tomorrow! I gotta get there fast!" Vinyl was hurriedly stuffing the case with records from behind the counter, kept separate from the rest.

"Couldn't you just, like, not go?" Lyra asked.

Vinyl paused, looking at Lyra with an eyebrow raised.

"Lyra, Lu-Tang Clan ain't nothin' ta buck wit!" She reverted back to stuffing the suitcase.

"Wait, how long are you going for?"

"Shouldn't be more than a few days."

"Mmmhmm, and what about the shop?" Lyra inquired, not impressed.

Vinyl stopped. She hadn't thought about that.

"AUUGHGH! EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG!"

"Hey, what if Lyra and I watched the shop while you're gone?" Octavia offered.

Lyra and Vinyl returned the offer with a "Huh?" in unison.

"Well, I've been working here a few months now, I think I get how everything works around here. I'm sure Lyra has some clue as to what she'd be doing. It should all work out fine!"

"Well, I dunno..."

"It'll be totally fine! What could go wrong?"

Vinyl sighed and lowered her head.

"Look, I trust you. Both of you. But this shop, its...its everything I have, you know? Its just...this is...." Vinyl glanced back up at the other two.

"...Please be careful..."

"Of course! We wont let you down!" Octavia replied, sporting a mock salute.

"Now come on, you've got a gig to get to!" Lyra said, helping Vinyl pack.

~

It was a pretty chilly morning. Lyra had come down to open the door, since she was staying in the shop, so she had the keys. Octavia came inside, an autumn breeze blowing in some crud with her, mostly dead leaves.

Its 8:30, the shop would be opening proper soon. Lyra was eating a breakfast of toast, while Octavia was sorting through the record crates and moving any records in the wrong spots. It also made a great excuse to just look through for interesting stuff. After a while, Lyra turns the sign on the door with her magic. Open. Let the day start.

Lyra didn't know how to fill out all the paperwork in the office, so she just stuck around the counter with Octavia. A lot of time was spent staring out the windows, it was pretty slow (apparently most ponies don't have time to browse music on the way to work in the morning), and neither of them could think of anything to talk about, Octavia still didn't know Lyra that well, and Lyra was just really tired, especially after her night of accidental homelessness.

"Welllllll...this is fun."

The silence was awful. They needed to do...something! Then, Octavia suddenly had an idea.

"Sooooo...hows this whole 'band thing' going to work?" Octavia smiled expectantly, awaiting the reply. She'd never been in a band before. Ensembles, yes, Bands, no. Were they very different? If they were, it what ways was it different? Octavia's smile dropped when she received no reply.

"Lyra?" Octavia nudged her. Still nothing. Upon closer inspection, Lyra had fallen asleep.

"Figures." She let out a sigh.

"Oh well, at least I'll be busy with all these customers." She thought to herself, glancing out at the empty shop floor.

It was going to be a long day.

~

It was 4 hours before a customer came in. They didn't even want to talk! At least the sound of the cash register woke Lyra up. so she could talk to somepony.

"Okay, lets try that again."

"So then, how about this whole band thing?"

"Whu-huh?" Lyra replied, rubbing her eyes.

"You know, the whole 'we should start a band thing' when we went to see Sonic Foal?"

"OOOH! Well...I guess we...just practice? I dunno really. We should probably come here for it, since Vinyl's drums are here, and they're a pain to move."

"But what would we be playing?"

"Can't say really, we gotta ask Vinyl before we do anything."

Lyra put her head back on the counter in an attempt to go back to sleep.

"Riveting."

It was turning out to be a long day.

~

Shutting up shop was a lot easier than it normally is. There wasn't any mess to clean up, seeing as how there were only 3 customers today. Since she had finished cleaning up way earlier than usual, Octavia took the opportunity to look through the crates. Again.

Lyra was counting the day's profits, a whopping 44 Bits altogether.

"Vinyl isn't going to be very happy about this. I wonder how she's doing?"

"She'll be fine, I'm sure of it!"

Meanwhile in Manehattan

The crowd were milling around expectantly, the show was meant to start 10 minutes ago now. Their attention was suddenly drawn to the noise emanating from the venue's sound system.

"En garde! I'll let you try my Lu-Tang style!"

With that, a large group of ponies took the stage, bouncing around to the beats played by a certain white unicorn. At this point the mics came into play.

"BRING DA MOTHA BUCKIN' RUCKUS! BRING DA MOTHA BUCKIN' RUCKUS!"

The crowd went wild, and the DJ smiled to herself from behind the decks. The Manehattan underground was, simply put, incredible.

"This is too cool!"

~

Precious Thing

Chapter 6 : Precious Thing

In which da ruckus continues

~

It had started raining again after closing time, so it was pretty quiet out, nopony wanted to be out in the dark, especially with the cold and rain. Octavia had left in a hurry in an attempt to reduce time in the weather, so there wasn't much point in sticking around the shop front. Lyra locked the shop up for the night and went upstairs into Vinyl's living space. She made herself a quick dinner of I'm-lazy-and-there-isn't-much-left-in-the-kitchen surprise and started reading the latest issue of "Below Classical". It was her favorite fanzine, all about underground music of any genre around Equestria. Issues only came out once every few months, and this was a particularly hefty addition, mostly focusing on the upcoming bands from around Seaddle. The town had started to develop its own sound, out of boredom if nothing else. Seaddle was a fair distance away from any other cities, so a lot of bands just wouldn't bother playing here when on tour.

The article mentioned several rising bands from the local area, Marevins and The U-Stallions in particular as well as a few Lyra wasn't familiar with, but she had been away in Ponyville a while. She made a mental note of the ones that sounded interesting, she could probably go watch a few of them considering she was now in the area.

Lyra finished the article and moved onto the next. Lu-Tang Clan. "Huh. I wonder how Vinyl's doing..." She read the article, the parts about gun running, drugs and possible connections to murders particularly stuck out to her. "I'm sure she's fine...I hope she's fine, anyway..."

Meanwhile in Manehattan

Vinyl scrambled to hide behind a dumpster, she couldn't afford to be seen. Crouching down beside the dumpster, she found herself staring at Ghostieface Killah hidden behind some crates opposite her,obviously he'd though this alley seemed like a pretty solid hiding spot too. He put a hoof up to his mouth, miming a "Shh" to her. Vinyl rolled her eyes. "You don't need to tell me that..."

She found herself crouching lower to the ground in an effort to evade an approaching noise. There was no doubt about it now, it was most definitely a guard patrol. The show had been a set up, the guards had used the show as a way to get the Clan all in one place and arrest them for various charges. Unfortunately for Vinyl, who was on stage at the time, this now included her, though if she could get away she doubted they would come after her anymore, seeing as how it was incredibly unlikely any of the guard's documents mentioned her in any way, for this operation at least. The sound grew closer, Vinyl lowered her breathing to keep quiet. It was to a great deal of relief for her that they continued on straight past the alley, not even giving it a second glance.

Quickly making sure the guard's had past, she made her way over to Ghostieface and sat down with him. She sighed and faced him.

"Look, Ghostie, this has all been very exciting, it really has. And its been a privilege to not only DJ with you guys, but to perform at one of you're shows? That's just a whole other level! Buuuuut, I really could do without being arrested, you know? I think it might be best if I head back home early..."

"S'cool, this life aint' ta everypony's liking, and da guard's a whole lotta hassle we don't need. I gotta say though, you were on it tonight, sounded real tight. I hope we can have you back some time."

"I'd like that." Vinyl smiled and glanced out from behind the boxes. The coast was clear.

"Alright Ghostie, I'm gonna head out while its clear, tell the rest of the Clan I said thanks!" She saluted the rapper and made her leave.

"Gee, this would make one hell of a story.."

~

Lyra had put the spare covers back onto Vinyl's sofa for the night. She could sleep in Vinyl's bed while she was away, but it would make her feel weird, for some reason she couldn't explain. She put down her copy of Below Classical and put the lights out, it was late and she had to be up in the morning, she could finish reading tomorrow. With everything sorted, she settled in for the night.

Lyra was awoken by a large crash from downstairs She glanced over at the clock: 4:17AM. She grumbled to herself as she rolled of the makeshift bed and went to investigate. "I was having a good dream too! There was cake and everything. Stupid noise, this better be important." She reached the bottom of the stairs and opened the door. It was indeed very important.

Stood in the corner of the shop next to a broken window, was a pony, a hood concealing any of its features. All Lyra could tell was that it was a red pegasus. She snapped out of what was left of her sleep and went into full anger mode.

"WHAT THE HAY DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!?"

The pony turned to face Lyra, a grin visible, but the rest of it's face obscured. It was emptying a can of lantern oil onto the floor. Then from the pocket of it's hood, it produced a lighter. Fear swept across Lyra at the sight.

"No."

"NO!Nononono! Please!"

The pegasus flicked the lighter and dropped it into the puddle, before exiting back through the window. The fluid ignited instantly, filling the shop with smoke. The fire began to spread to the record crates and walls. The smell of burning plastic and wood began to fill the air, the fire now producing thick black fumes.

"Okayokayokay! Don't panic. What do I...WATER!"

Lyra bolted upstairs and returned with a few buckets of water. She used her magic to pour them all at once over the fire in an attempt to smother it. It sorta worked, but by the time she'd filled the buckets up and come back downstairs it had spread further along the walls.

"AHHHH! THIS ISN'T WORKING!"

She needed to go and get help, but the fire was blocking the exit. She was trapped, the only way she would be able to get out was...

She ran back upstairs, closing everything behind her to try and stop the fire spreading this far. She reached Vinyl's living room and opened one of the windows. The shop front made a small ledge underneath the window, not too far down. "No turning back now...". Lyra lowered herself out of the window and onto the narrow ledge, before repeating that step to get to street level. She landed with a thud on the paving slabs. Lyra scrambled to her hooves and made for the nearest emergency point, which was fortunately only a short distance from the shop. She activated the fire beacon and waited for assistance, not taking her eyes off of the burning building for a second.

~

7AM, Time for Octavia to wake up. She started her infallible morning routine: Get up, wash, get dressed, eat breakfast. She opted for her bow tie today instead of another band shirt, they all needed to be washed anyway. She gathered up some food for Lyra, figuring she'd appreciate it, and set off for the shop with her delicious care package.

It was a chilly, foggy morning. Octavia wished she'd brought her scarf, winter surely was on it's way in now. At least the food in the bag was still sorta warm. She rounded the corner onto the street the shop was on, noticing it was much busier than usual, especially at this time of the day. Something wasn't right, that much was evident from the emergency carts in the road. The smell in the air wasn't a good sign either, something had definitely happened here.

She approached the shop, but her path was blocked, there was a crowd gathered around it. "Odd." Octavia managed to get to the front of the crowd, only to be prevented access by a barrier, and several guards. The weather team were there too, moving clouds out of the shop. The shop itself was charred but recognizable, the front was ruined but the rest of the building seemed intact. "What the hay happened here?" A pang of sadness hit Octavia, this wasn't only where she worked, it was somewhere she enjoyed being. Vinyl was going to be devastated...

...

"LYRA!"

Octavia dropped the food and rushed up to the guards, she had to know Lyra was ok.

"Um, excuse me, but I work here and can you tell mewhathappenedpleasesayshe'sokLyraisokright?..."

It took a few seconds for the guards to figure out what it was she'd just said, but the message got across.

"Look, don't worry, everypony is fine. You said you worked here? Maybe you should come talk to her."

The guard stepped aside, allowing Octavia to pass through. She picked up the bag of food she'd brought for Lyra and made her way through. The shop front was an absolute wreck, and there was no point in entering it now anyway. Looking around, she spotted Lyra sitting in the back of a medical cart with a blanket and a drink. Octavia reached the cart in a flash and quickly had Lyra in a hug,

"Oh my gosh, Lyra! I'm so happy you're okay! What happened?"

Lyra stared off into the distance with empty eyes, taking a sip from her coffee.

"Somepony broke in." She said, with no hint of emotion.

"W-what?"

"They broke the window and came in," Lyra pointed for emphasis, "And started pouring lantern oil everywhere. They dropped a lighter in it and flew back out." She turned to Octavia with a tearful look. "I-I tried to stop it..."

Octavia put her foreleg around Lyra to comfort her. "Shhhshhshh, it wasn't your fault Lyra, some sick pony broke in and did this, there wasn't anything you could do."

"I-I-I should've stopped them! I was too slow, and now look at the shop!" Lyra buried her face in her hooves.

"Lyra. Listen to me. It's not your fault."

"...I let her down, Tavi. Vinyl. She said it herself, this shop was everything. I said nothing would happen to it, now look at it." Lyra burst into tears, and Octavia pulled her in for another hug.

"Hey now, don't talk like that, none of us could've know this would happen. I'm sure she'll be happy just to find out you're safe."

The sat there wordlessly for a few minutes watching the emergency crews as they moved around the scene. Octavia broke the silence.

"Oh, I brought you some breakfast too!" She passed the bag to Lyra. It contained a flask of coffee and a fresh croissant Octavia had made. As well as being musical, she was a damn good cook.

~

Vinyl gathered her things and stepped off the train. She had not slept, overnight travel isn't something she does well and the train was pretty noisy all night, but she was happy to be back home, even if it had only been a brief departure. It was certainly more relaxing already, not having to dodge any patrols. Plus, she still had most of the things she had left with, so that was good too. She figured the guards had seized anything she was missing records in the raid, thankfully nothing rare or expensive.

She left the station and set about getting home, still buzzing. She'd DJ'd with the Lu-Tang Clan. She was gonna talk about this for weeks. Not only that, but they invited her back too. Truly, it had been a great trip, even if it did get cut short. It was a pretty quick walk to the shop. She stopped by a café on the way, having not eaten since last night. Eventually she rounded the corner onto the street where the shop was located, which seemed much busier than normal. Funnily enough, the fuss seemed to be concentrated around...her...shop...

Vinyl galloped over to see why everypony was outside her shop. She noticed the emergency carts lining the road, and the presence of guards. "Oh, there is no way this can be good." Paranoia struck her, what if they were still trying to arrest her from Manehattan? Was there a robbery? What if something had happened to Lyra? Fighting her way through the crowd, she got her answer.

The whole front of the shop was blackened with soot, the door had been forced open and one of the windows was gone. The front half of the shop floor was completely destroyed, the back seemed to have fared better but was still damaged in places. The rest of the building looked in okay shape. Any stock she had out on the floor had been rendered unsellable, melted by the heat of the blaze. Lyra was no where to be seen. She had to be okay, she had to be. Vinyl found the nearest guard to try and get some information.

"E-e-excuse me, I'm the owner of this building...What...What happened?" Vinyl eventually force out, holding back tears.

"The owner? Vinyl Scratch, correct?"

Vinyl nodded at the guard.

"I see. If you would like to follow me." The guard led her to a medical cart, containing her friends. Vinyl rushed over to them.

"GUYS! YOU'RE ALRIGHT!" Vinyl exclaimed, no longer attempting to hold back tears. The three embraced in a group hug, which was actually fairly uncomfortable considering the crampedness of the cart.

"Guys...what happened?"

"Arson." Lyra said bluntly. "Last night, somepony broke in and set fire to the shop. Vinyl, I'm so, so sorry."

"Arson? Why? Why would anypony..." Vinyl choked on her sentence, and was again struggling back tears.

"I don't know, Vinyl. I just don't know. I didn't even recognize them."

"You saw who it was? What did they look like?"

Lyra shook her head. "They were wearing a hood, all I could see was their snout. The only thing I can say for sure is that is was a red pegasus." Lyra looked Vinyl straight in the eye. "Vinyl, I'm sorry. I...I let you down, I promised nothing would happen while you were gone.." Lyra broke her gaze and hung her head, she started crying again.

Vinyl put a hoof on Lyra's chin and brought her head back up. "Lyra. Look at me. This isn't your fault. This is not your fault, okay? I'm just happy you're safe."

"B-but your shop..."

"I have insurance. Sure, this is a massive set back, and its gonna be a lot of work, but it'll get taken care of. I...I'd need to find out the extent of the damage, but that can wait. You guys are safe, and that's the main thing."

Lyra nodded, and looked back at the floor again. "Upstairs is fine, but the shop front is pretty bad. I don't know about the rest of the shop..."

"Well, if its just the front, thats a lot less work than the whole building." Vinyl looked back at the shop and sighed. "Well Lyra, guess I'd better start looking for a hotel for the both of us, I doubt they'll let us stay here until they declare it safe, and that could be a few days."

"Nonsense!" Octavia interjected. "You're welcome to stay at my house while this mess get sorted, its the least I can do!"

Vinyl offered her a slight smile. "Thanks a lot, Tavi."

"Anytime, I'll do anything to help! I'd suggest we head there now, it is pretty chilly today."

"I don't think we can leave yet, the guards are going to have questions and stuff..."

"Well, the guards have already talked to me," Lyra explained." and I guess I have more information...I'm sure if you just tell them where you're going it'll be fine."

"Okay then, guess I'll go do that."

"Excellent!" Octavia exclaimed, "We'll wait for you and then make our way back to my house. I'll have to set up the spare room, but everything should be fine."

"Thanks Tavi, I guess I'll go find a guard to talk to then."

"Tavi, you don't have to do this, I'll find a hotel." Lyra said.

"I wont hear a word of it! You've been through quite enough. Come along now, its frosty today!"

And so they left for Octavia's house, which was, as suggested, much much warmer than just hanging around in that cart all day. Guards came by later with questions for Vinyl; stuff like details of ownership of the building, asking if she could think of any reason for anypony to do what they did, the usual stuff. Octavia set up her spare room for the two, and they settled in for their stay, however long it might be.

~

You're Living All Over Me

Chapter 7 : You're Living All Over Me

In which the house is shared

~

All at once a number of unexpected things happened.

Octavia did not own a copy of "Straight Outta Cloudsdale", and as such there was no reason for it to be playing so loudly in her house, let alone at all.

4:43 AM is not a time she associated with anything other than sleep, why was this album playing at this time in the morning?

She was definitely sure that when she went to bed there were no light show installments anywhere on her property.

She let out a groan and got up to investigate. She was missing out on a good two and a bit hours of sleep now, and she was not best pleased about it. Turning the corner and heading down the stairs (avoiding the lighting that had now been set up), Octavia found herself in the room that housed her record player. Vinyl was there with an unfamiliar dirt coated box full of records, looking as if she was about to burst into tears.

"Vinyl? W-what is this? Its 4 in the morning!"

"I-I-I-I panicked thinking about the store....I had to put some music on to..."

"But why so loud?" She pointed a hoof at the box. "Where did you even get these from?!"

"Its one of my emergency record crates. I have them buried around town in case of an occasion like this."

"..." Octavia didn't really know how to respond to that.

"Look, Tavi, I'm really sorry, but this is just how I cope when bad things happen..." Vinyl turned down the volume on the player.

"Well....Can you...Do you think you can cope more quietly? Not just for me and Lyra, but I think the neighbors are gonna be pretty angry too."

"I dunno Tavi, but I can try."

"Hmm...well, we're a band now, right?" Octavia let out a yawn. It was still pre-sunrise after all. "Why don't you try writing a song?"

"I tried that, but when I get sad and mopey everything I write comes out sad and mopey."

"Well then let it be sad and mopey! Let it out! Who knows, it could be great..." Octavia turned around and headed back upstairs. A mares gotta get her rest after all. Vinyl heard her door click shut, she was alone again. She sighed and wen over to the window, it was still dark outside, progressing further into autumn meant dawn came later and later each day. The stars were even still out.

"Let it all out, huh? Maybe I should try this..."

~

"Wow Vinyl, this is pretty..." Octavia trailed off.

"...Dark." Lyra finished for her.

The three were grouped around the table in Octavia's kitchen, she'd made a breakfast of pancakes for them all.

"Well, you said to let it out, so I did!" Vinyl pouted.

"Well yes, but this is far...angrier than I would've expected."

Vinyl rubbed the back of her neck. "Well I uh...may have started thinking about the arsonist while that P.W.A album was still playing..."

~

Song #1 - No idea for a title yet. Something about grace I imagine

No idea about chords or notes, but it would probably be played flat.

Note: Fast and distorted would probably be pretty good on this. Or maybe slow and sludgy. See how it sounds. Punky sound would be pretty cool I guess

Song number one is not a buck you song

Luna take me to a higher place

Slipping in and out of grace

The ponies and lives they save

Slipping in and out of grace

Don't go back there, its not safe

Slipping in and out of grace

Spread the flame, burn to waste

Slipping in and out of grace

Maybe some kind of middle 8 or something could go here. I dunno, I don't even have any clue what the tune for this is!

Oh god how you love to hate

Slipping in and out of grace

Burn the world, save your face

Slipping in and out of grace

ITS ABOUT THE SHOP BEING BURNT! GET IT?

~

"Soooo..."

"Look, I'm just really angry at this arsonist! I had to let it go somewhere!"

"That's understandable I guess. Still, this is different from what I expect of you..."

"Hey, I get angry too! Besides, this is a pretty big deal! Its all still fresh in our heads."

"I like it." Lyra interjected. "You should work out the tune for this whole thing."

"Woah there, I make beats, I have no clue about the other stuff."

"Well then we'll have to help!" Lyra shouted excitedly. However, her gaze quickly sank to the floor. "Oh, but my lyre is at you house, and the fireponies said it's still not safe to enter yet..."

"Lyra, need I remind you that I have a cello here?"

Lyra perked up. "Oh yeah!" She immediately sank back down again. "Oh, but I don't know how to play cello."

Octavia brought a hoof to her face. Vinyl went over to Lyra.

"Lyra, look at me. Tavi, yeah, Tavi owns a cello, because she plays the cello. Do you follow? She would be playing it, thats her thing, yes?"

"Oooooooh..."

"I sure wish I had my drums...Tavi! Do you have anything good to hit? I might need to borrow a stick too!"

Octavia's hoof remained firmly planted on her face.

~

Most of the day was spent figuring out bits of the song, and it didn't sound half bad, if they did say so themselves. Lyra had been telling Octavia all about her lyre. It was electric! Lyra had effects for it! Octavia ~~wanted~~ needed some effects for her cello, but since it was a normal cello, they wouldn't do anything. She would have to get an electric one. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Lyra had been roped in to sing Vinyl's song when it emerged that Vinyl would mess up her rhythm if she tried to sing and drum at the same time, and Octavia was too busy concentrating on the cello to remember to sing. Still though, Lyra didn't have her lyre with her yet so she had no idea if she could sing it and play at the same time, but this worked for now.

Vinyl's hastily constructed 'drum kit' consisted mainly of empty boxes she'd found around the house, and Octavia's garbage bins, a la 'Pony Galore' when they went to the gig.

They'd decided that it sounding a bit punk was when it had sounded best, so that was sorted. Lyra and Octavia had managed to find a progression of notes that Vinyl liked for the song, and the beat was all worked out.

Octavia went out around mid-afternoon to try and find out how much an electric cello would cost. When she had an idea, she saw it through, and it was all planned out. She would get a used cello and amp (she wasn't going to bother buying brand new equipment for what is basically an experiment, she needs that money for food!) and eventually get some effects. Or maybe she could get Lyra or Vinyl to make her some, they were pretty much just enchanted boxes, at least that's what she thought Lyra had said about them. Octavia left to scout out around the local pawn shops for a deal, leaving Vinyl and Lyra to do...what ever it is they do?

~

That went better than expected. Since these instruments were a new invention, Octavia had predicted that no pawn shops would have any, and if they did, not cheap. She was very wrong. Apparently there had just been a phase with electric instruments which was ending, and now everypony wanted to get rid of theirs for some reason. She'd gone out to work out an average price, and came back with a working (if a bit battered) cello and amplifier. Today was a good day.

The house was empty when she got back. There was a note saying one of the fire crew came and said it was safe for them to go and get some of their stuff from the shop. She guessed there would be nothing to do for an hour or so and went about setting up her new toys, she really wanted to put this stuff down anyway, Large object + Heavy object + No magic = Bad times. Cargo now on the ground, she went about setting it all up. How hard could it be?

~

Lyra and Vinyl got back to Octavia's house around sunset. Vinyl had a few boxes of her stuff, and Lyra had her lyre and all its related stuff. The shop still wasn't okay enough to be lived in yet, but it was fine enough to retrieve some things, and for work to be started on it soon.

Nopony answered when they knocked on the door, but it was unlocked, so Octavia had to have been in. Vinyl stacked her stuff up by the door (eh, she'd move it later) and went to go and find Tavi. There was no sign of her in the kitchen or living room, so she must be upstairs. Lyra was already making her way upstairs to dump her stuff in the spare room. Vinyl followed her up the stairs and round the corner, only for the both of them to find Octavia.

Her bedroom door was open, and she was lying on the floor tangled up in cables, with an amp and a beaten up cello beside her.

"AH, FRIENDS! HELP ME, I'VE BECOME ENSNARED BY THESE!"

It was now clear she'd somehow tied herself up in the power cable for the amp and the lead for the cello. It was also apparent that she couldn't move. Neither Vinyl nor Lyra even attempted to stop themselves laughing, they were both in tears, and Lyra was on the floor. Octavia was not very pleased about their reaction.

"Oh, yes yes, its all very funny. Now would either of you care to help me?" Octavia scowled.

"T-Tavi, how long have you been stuck there?" Vinyl replied, wiping a tear from her eye.

"...I-I don't think thats important..."

"Tell me? Pretty please?"

"...about 45 minutes..."

That was it, Vinyl was gone. She joined Lyra rolling about on the floor, making an already irate Tavi very angry.

"ALRIGHT! OK! THATS ENOUGH, CAN YOU HELP ME NOW?!"

Neither of them noticed. It was just too funny. Octavia attempted to wiggle herself free, but in doing so only managed to tangle herself further.

"Please help..."

Octavia let out a sigh, Vinyl and Lyra were gonna be like this for a while now...

~

Bone Machine

Chapter 8 : Bone Machine

Your bone's got a little machine

You're a bone machine

~

It seemed like a forever ago the 'cables incident' happened, and for Vinyl it was. That must have been about 3 or 4 hours ago now, old news. By now she'd unpacked the stuff she'd been able to take from her shop, mostly consisting of her drum kit and DJ decks. This had the unfortunate side effect of massively reducing the floor space of the spare room where she and Lyra were staying, making it hard to reach anywhere in the room.

This also meant Lyra had to clamber over the drum kit in order to navigate to her bed, which sucked big time since it made a noise anytime part of it got moved. Add this to the fact she went to bed after the rest of them, and this lead to a supremely early wake up call for Vinyl and Octavia. Still, for Vinyl at least, drum kit is way better than no drum kit.

Lyra herself had brought everything she had in Seaddle to Octavia's house. So basically her Lyre, amplifier, effect boxes, a few cables and a big winter coat. The rest of her stuff was still in Ponyville, not there was a much of it anyway, pretty much just some clothes and her bed which she planned to collect once she had a place to stay proper. At the moment things were going far from perfect for her, but she also knew it could be much, much worse. She had friends and somewhere to stay here. And now also a picture of Octavia trapped in her own instrument leads. This photo would probably end up stuck on her lyre somewhere.

~

The day was already off to a better start than the last one, considering that it didn't start pre-dawn for any of them today. Octavia was making breakfast for the three of them, Vinyl had gotten dressed (it was a cold one today, a shirt was in order) and was reading the paper, and Lyra was...somewhere?

Lyra was digging through Vinyl's 'Emergency Record Crate' in the hopes that the album she was looking for would be in there somewhere. Vinyl had also brought a bunch of her own records over when they took stuff from the shop too, so her quest could take some time. Although apparently today was her lucky day, she the album she was looking for in the crate, and another she wasn't exaclty looking for but was hoping would pop up somewhere. She collected her findings and went to the kitchen, setting the records down on the table.

"Hey Tavi, you should check these out, I reckon you'd like them."

On the table were two LPs, the first was 'Surfer Roseluck' by The Breezies.

"No, not The Breezies, just Breezies."

Octavia didn't even question what Lyra had just said or why, she'd learnt to just deal with it at this point, what ever happened just sot of did, that was it. Underneath 'Surfer Roseluck' was 'Is Nothing' by a band called 'My Special Somepony'. Octavia had heard about Breezies before, Vinyl mentioned them once or twice, but this second band was new to her. Still, Octavia wasn't a pony to pass up new music! At least, not anymore.

"Ooooh, those are great! I think you'll like 'em." Vinyl said, looking up from the paper.

"Wait, I've heard you talk about Breezies before, but who are this second band?"

"My Special Somepony? They make music thats all...uh...wavy, and fuzzy and swirly sounding."

Top work Vinyl, that made everything so much clearer. Octavia finished up making breakfast (Pancakes, really good ones at that) and went to listen to the albums as soon as she was done. None of them had anything planned for the day, so it was very much just whatever.

~

Octavia had to give credit where it's due, Vinyl was right about 'My Special Somepony', fuzzy and swirly was pretty much exactly how they sounded. It was a pretty unique sound, huge, rolling layers of guitar making a wall of sound, almost droney sometimes, and sweet, quiet vocals., sometimes injected with moments of noisy, almost punk tracks every now and then. It sounded huge, like listening to a mountain, or some equally bad metaphor. This is a record she would need to add to her collection for sure.

She placed the LP back in it's sleeve, and replaced it with 'Surfer Roseluck' on the turntable.

~

It was the weird time that only exists on Sundays, when there isn't anything to do and it's not time for dinner, but outside it looks way later than it is. Except it wasn't Sunday, but that's besides the point, it was one of those times where there isn't anything to do, really. Lyra was upside down on Octavia's sofa, finally finishing the newest Below Classical issue after unfortunate circumstances had caused her to stop, and Vinyl was just watching the clock, contemplating doing something, but at the moment she was too lazy to follow through with any of her plans. Eh, maybe later.

Neither of them had seen Octavia for an hour or two now, she went to listen to the albums and that was it. But being that kind of day neither of them bothered to go and investigate, doing nothing was too good. Besides, they were pretty sure she was probably still alive...

Octavia moved silently though the house, being a master of subtlety. At least when she chose to be. Right now she was behind the sofa, unnoticed by her guest. She had 'borrowed' Lyra's lyre, and was now just waiting for the perfect moment. She had played the lyre before, being classically trained she could play many instruments, the lyre included, even if her working knowledge of it was basic, it was enough.

From the other side of the sofa one of them sighed. "Now is the time!" From her spot behind the sofa, she began to softly strum the lyre acoustically, E, C#m, G#, A. After a few bars of this, she began to sing (not really her forte, but still).

"Where is my mind?"

"Where is my mind?"

Now she could hear them singing along with her.

"Wheeeeeereeeeeee is my miiind?"

As she played into the verse, Vinyl and Lyra's heads popped out from behind the sofa, both had grins plastered on their faces. Octavia didn't know the words to the verse, but she knew that they all knew another part anyway. Anypony who had heard this song knew this part.

"Ooooooooo, Ooooooooo!"

All of them sang in unison, with some pretty nice harmonies going on. "Yes, I think this was a good idea indeed."

"Ooooooooo, Ooooooooo!"

"Ooooooooo, Ooooooooo!"

And they just sort of sat there, wailing along to the tune as Octavia played it. It could've been hours, but it didn't really matter, they were having fun, and there wasn't really anything else to do.

~

It had been decided, their first course of action as a band proper would be to learn that song. And maybe a few others from 'Surfer Roseluck' too, everything on that album was gold. They also had Vinyl's song lined up, and Octavia wanted to try something with Lyra's effects, so something noisy was in the works too.

They were a band, and they were doing band things! It was probably the best day where nothing actually happened ever! All they needed was a name.

Well, really they still needed quite a lot of stuff, but a name was pretty high on the priority list at the moment.

~

Author's Note

TIME WARP!

akarock : Personally I would have recommended Surfer Roseluck myself but Damaged and II are both awesome records.

Nic-Fit : >> akarock

Totally gonna have to steal Surfer Roseluck at some point

And then I did

The Money Will Roll Right In

Chapter 9 : The Money Will Roll Right In

In which things start going too fast

~

They were all starting to get bored of doing nothing all day now. Work had started on re-doing the shop front now, but it would be a few weeks before it would be finished. Vinyl had started a temporary mail order record service to keep cash flowing in while the shop was out of action, she would send out lists of her stock, and ponies would reply by sending cash and their requested titles back to her, and in return she'd mail out what they ordered. This operation was run from Octavia's kitchen table, unless there was food on it.

Vinyl was sure she'd lose a lot of business to the other record shops in the area, but for anypony wanting something over than classical or cheesy pop music, she was pretty much the only way. She always had a reliable core market, she'd just have to work harder to win the other customers back after the shop was fixed up.

But for now, she was incredibly bored of the whole thing. Vinyl had her head rested on the table surrounded by paperwork, Octavia opposite her finishing off some tea. Lyra trotted into the kitchen wearing a trench coat and hat she'd acquired from Celestia knows where, and slowly made her way towards Vinyl, keeping her face behind the collar of the coat at all times and the hat low. Eventually they were side by side. Lyra's eyes were shifting all over the room, she put her muzzle up to Vinyl's ear.

"Psst, hey. Wanna see something cool?"

This piqued Vinyl's interest. Yeah, damn right she wanted to see something cool! Who was saying she didn't want to see something cool? She'd show them! She'd show them all! Nothing would stop her from seeing something cool!

"YEAH!" Vinyl exclaimed after a few moments, slamming a hoof down onto the table, making Lyra jump.

Lyra's eyes shifted around the room again.

"Come with me."

With that she grabbed Vinyl and led her out the front of the house. The adventure ended as abruptly as it had started; Lyra had led her to the little alley between Octavia's house and the building next door.

"Behold!" Lyra beamed, pointing a hoof to a dumpster.

Vinyl was not impressed.

"That's it? Lyyyraaaaaaaaa, this isn't cool! This is the opposite of cool!"

"No, look inside it you cretin."

"So what? You brought me out here to look at other pony's trash? Lyra, this is lame beyond- Ooooooooooooooh!"

~

Lyra and Vinyl stuck to the walls inside Octavia's house, various shushes were exchanged between the two. Lyra had her discovery (poorly) concealed under her coat, they didn't want 'Tavi to find out. Octavia was still in the kitchen, cleaning up at the sink. This meant she was facing away from the kitchen entrance. Ensuring the coast was clear, Lyra and Vinyl quietly made their way to the other side.

"What are you two doing?" Octavia said, not even turning her head to see.

"How did she-"

"I dunno..."

"Nothing..." Lyra and Vinyl replied in unison.

Their excellent deception was ruined when a large object fell from Lyra's trench coat with a thud and a twang.

"Ugh, smooth move." Vinyl said with a hoof on her face.

Octavia came away from the sink to inspect the scene, the two mares were now bickering with each other. She rolled her eyes and continued out. There on the floor between Lyra and Vinyl was a battered red guitar. Several of the strings were broken, the paint was scratched and chipped, and there were several stickers on the front. The name on the head stock identified it as a Splendor Mustang, favored by many underground bands for its ruggedness and cheapness.

"And just where did you two come across this?" Octavia asked with a scowl.

"Trash." They answered, again in unison.

"Rifling through waste, such class..." Octavia dead panned and took a step back from the guitar.

"Can we keep it? Huh, huh, huh?!"

"Do either of you even know how to play a guitar?"

Lyra and Vinyl both cocked their heads.

"Of course...And I don't know why you're asking me about keeping it, I'm not your mother! You both have your own homes and lives!"

"Oh yeah..."

Octavia turned back towards the kitchen.

"DIBS!"

"NUH UH! I FOUND IT FIRST!"

"YEAH, I CALLED IT!"

"TAVI! TELL HER!"

Octavia sighed.

"I might as well be their mother...

~

Tavi was reading the paper in the living room, one story in particular stuck out to her.

'FACTORY TORCHED IN ARSON ATTACK'

"Guess they're still out there then..." Octavia cast a worried glance out the window. It was dark outside now, it wasn't particularly late, but as winter drew in the days were getting shorter.

The slamming of the front door indicated Lyra was back, having gone out a few hours earlier to do...something? She didn't really say. What was clear, though, was that she was in a very good mood, evidenced by the fact that she had just moontrotted into the room.

"Well well, somepony seems very happy..."

"Yep!" Lyra replied while continuing to reverse, circling the sofa Octavia was seated on. "Guess who just got us a gig?"

"Wait, really?"

Lyra nodded, and continued on her backwards path.

"So, when it it?"

"Next week."

"NEXT WEEK?!"

Lyra stopped and gulped in response to Octavia's outburst.

"Next week, as in next week next week?"

"Y-yes...you don't seem very happy about this..."

"Lyra, how many songs do we know as a band?"

Lyra looked at the floor. "One and a bit..."

"What is the name of the band?"

"We don't have one..."

"How many shows have you been to where a band with no name played a single song and left?"

"I get the picture, Tavi."

Lyra lowered her head and left. Octavia head the spare room's door close, followed by sniffing and muffled whimpers through the ceiling.

"Oh buck, did I just do that?"

~

Octavia was still on the sofa, feeling pretty sorry for herself for upsetting Lyra like that. She could still hear her through the ceiling. She'd messed up this time. Vinyl came down the stairs with a disapproving look on her face.

"Well Tavi, what can I say. You messed up this time."

Called it.

"I know..." Octavia replied, looking anywhere but at Vinyl. "But I still have a point."

Vinyl shot her a funny look, and came up face to face with her.

"Octavia, do you know why Lyra went and got us a gig?"

She shook her head. "I dunno, experience?"

"She did it so she'd be able to pay you back for letting her stay at your house."

Octavia blinked a few times in realization, and bolted up the stairs to the spare room.

"Hey! Wait! I'm not done berating you yet!"

~

Lyra was curled up on the bed whimpering quietly to herself. She'd drawn the blind in the room, the only light was the soft glow from the street lights out side skirting around the edges of the window. 'I'm So Tired' by Fugrazei was playing on Vinyl's DJ decks, Lyra using her magic to move the needle back to the start of the song every time it finished.

She didn't hear the door open, but it was hard to miss the noise of somepony clambering over Vinyl's poorly placed drum kit. Glancing up, she found Octavia sat next to her on the bed. They both sat there wordlessly for a few moments, before Octavia wrapped Lyra in a hug, which caused her to tear up.

"I'm sorry." Octavia whispered to Lyra.

"W-why can't I d-do anything right?"

"Oh hush, enough of that now." Octavia wiped the tears from Lyra's face.

Both mares sat in silence for a minute or two, before Octavia turned to Lyra with a smirk on her face.

"So then, how about I start teaching you how to play that guitar?"

~

A Pretty Dress

Chapter 10 : A Pretty Dress

In which something daring is done

~

Vinyl couldn't stop Tavi from going upstairs to see Lyra, the best she could do now was wait around for the shouting or crying to pick up, then go and split them up.

She had not expected to hear "The Colt With The Thorn In His Hide" coming from upstairs. This, and annoyed grunts. Now thoroughly confused she made her way up to the spare room and walked in. Tavi was sat on one bed with an acoustic guitar, and Lyra on the other with their dumpster gold, even though it was missing some strings.

"No no, you need to press down closer to the frets." Tavi moved Lyra's hoof slightly until it was in the right place.

"Tavi, I didn't know you could play the guitar!" Said Vinyl. Octavia turned to face her with a smirk on her face.

"Classically trained, dear. I can play everything."

As if to prove her point (to be fair, she probably was), Octavia started straight back into the song, singing as she played.

"The colt with the thorn in his hide,"

"Behind the hatred there lies"

~

"AHAHAHHAHAAHHAHH!"

"Guhh, its too early for this."

"PFFFTAHHAAHA!"

"I swear its like, not even lunch time yet! I wanna stay asleep."

"HEEHAH!"

The door swung open to reveal Tavi laughing like a mad mare, a letter clutched in her teeth. It was a wonder it was still there really.

"How did you bring that without dropping it?"

"I didn't~! I just had to stop to pick it back up. A lot."

"What is it? Whats happening?" Said Lyra, having apparently also woken up.

Octavia passed the letter to them, pointing to one paragraph in particular.

"Lets see..."...due to unforeseen circumstances surrounding our first choice's 'radical-ness', you, as second choice, have been selected to replace him. Be wary, however, Miss Octavia, your own 'departure from the norm' did not go unnoticed during your recital. You will be expected to keep yourself inline with the rest of the orchestra..."...yadda yadda yadda."

Lyra and Vinyl glanced up at Octavia, back to the letter, then back to Octavia again. They tilted their heads in unison.

"I think I can use this to my advantage!" Octavia exclaimed, not noticing the confused looks of the other two. "If I do this right, it'll hit those uptight snobs right at their heart!"

"But Tavi, aren't you one of those uptight snobs?"

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Now, here's my plan."

"Plan for what?"

"Oh, I'll explain it later, just listen now.So, here's the plan..."

~

"Tavi, you realise this plan will take, like, weeks to accomplish! And its ridiculously complex! I don't even know how to put up a shelf, let alone make you a 'stealth amplifier'!"

"Yeah, but think about it, by then we'd be able to do so much more stuff. Think of it more like...exploding onto the scene!"

"But you wont be 'exploding onto the scene', you'll be freaking out rich ponies who have nothing to do with this!"

"Oh but they do...You'll see, Vinyl Scratch, you'll see."

Octavia slowly backed out of the room, not breaking eye contact with Vinyl until the door was closed.

"...What the hay just happened?"

"Lyra, believe me when I say I have no idea."

"Whatever, I'm going back to sleep."

"Good call."

~

This was it. Three weeks in the making. Today was the day. Octavia had had to endure endless rehearsal sessions with the orchestra, and not least she had to prove she was good enough to play, that took some revision learning all the stuff she used to play before, well, this whole thing. But now she had her plan, her special plan, she had a special plan for this show. It had been hard work, but it would all be worth it today. The day where she would enact her special plan. Did I mention her plan?

Earlier That Week

"Shhh!"

"I AM 'Shhh'd'! You Shhh!"

"Shut it, both of you! Do you want to get caught?" Octavia hissed.

"We want to go home!"

"But I need you for-"

"Your special plan. We know." Vinyl let out a sigh.

"Lets just get this done and get out of here. There should be a hatch we can hide it in around here."

The hatch opened with a creak, and the three mares dropped off the package in the opening.

"YES!" Octavia exclaimed. Her plan was going to plan!

"Hey! Who's there?" Hoofsteps could be heard coming towards the main door, the security guard's torch light now visible through the cracks in the door frame. Vinyl and Lyra shot their best 'Really?' looks at Octavia, who replied with her own sheepish grin.

"Lets just hide under the seats before I kill you." Vinyl scowled and trotted off into the hall, the others followed.

Right Now

Octavia met Lyra and Vinyl outside the auditorium. She couldn't help but suppress a giggle at the sight of Vinyl in a dress.

"Be quiet. Why do I have to wear this?" She gestured towards the dress.

"Letter said 'formal attire', remember? You wouldn't get in otherwise."

"Whatever, lets just do this. Have you got all your stuff?"

Octavia tapped her cello case. "All in here. I'll leave at the interlude and change it, then enact my plan proper when the curtain comes back up."

For the last three weeks, every conversation with Octavia had been 'plan this', 'plan that'. It was pretty grueling, and it probably wouldn't even be worth it. But, hey, the sooner they do this, the sooner they can be not talking about her plan, and that was a prize worth working for at this point.

"Meet me by door B at the break, I'll get you backstage. Then we can-"

"The plan. We know Tavi. We...we know."

"Okay then. Door B, Interlude, don't forget." Octavia turned and left to get backstage with the other musicians.

"She has actually lost it, hasn't she." Lyra said to nopony in particular.

"Eeyup." Vinyl responded.

~

"Girls, here!" Octavia pulled the Vinyl and Lyra through door B.

"Ok, so they've 'accidentally' locked themselves in a cupboard, nopony should notice if you take their places, but try not to stick out too much until we start. Remember, once the song is finished, run like hay." Octavia walked them over to the bandstand, and found them their places: Vinyl was behind a Timpani, and Lyra sat in with the strings section. A brief check revealed exactly what Octavia wanted to see; the amps they had hidden here last week hadn't be taken away. She turned them on, and passed a cable to Lyra, before plugging her newly swapped out electric cello in. They would both be playing through one of Lyra's enchanted effects boxes, the Magic Harmonix Big Mane, for full distortion. This was sure to turn some heads tonight.

The rest of the ensemble began filling into their seats, tuning and what not. Octavia could hear the noise of the auditorium filling up again with an audience. I couldn't be more than minute or two until her special plan would be executed. Oh, this plan. She was a funny mare. A funny, funny, funny mare!

She didn't know it, but Octavia's left eye was twitching.

The curtain drew up, revealing the audience, in all their finery. The conductor walked up to the stand, calling for silence. The whole place was now deathly quiet. Octavia shot a nod over to Lyra.

"IT BEGINS!"

Lyra rolled the volume up on her electric Lyra, and began blasting out the opening notes to an instrumental song she had written: Fluffgun 91. They had been hard at work to make sure it would be ready, and it had paid off. The whole crowd gasped, promptly voiding the entire auditorium of air (probably), and the ensemble all shot Lyra looks of anger and disbelief.

Vinyl and Octavia both joined in after a few seconds, making the song sound fuller, and more powerful, driving it forwards. Angry yells were coming from the conductor, not that anypony could hear them, the song was in full swing now.

The second chorus came around, and suddenly silence. Looking around in the confusion, Octavia spotted the conductor holding the power supply to the amp in his teeth, looking about ready to kill somepony.

"I don't need to be told twice."

"HOOF IT!"

Octavia jumped from the stand, cello in tow, and bolted for the door, closely followed by Lyra and her lyre, and Vinyl, carrying somepony elses drum.

And finally a group of very angry classical musicians, too.

The three mares ran alongside each other, hearing the stampede behind them getting closer and louder.

"THIS WAS ENTIRELY WORTH IT!"

They erupted from the door, and galloped all the way back to Tavi's house, still laden with instruments.

It wasn't a short journey, either.

~

Interlude: I've Seen Footage

"Sister?"

Luna pushed open the door to her sister's chambers. Casting a quick glance around the room, Luna deduced that Celestia herself was, in fact, not in here. Turning to leave, she found herself distracted by an open letter on Celestia's desk, and a tape reel resting next to it. Luna walked over to investigate, knowing she shouldn't really be reading her sister's mail, but too curious to prevent herself from doing so.

"Highnesses Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,"

'Ah, both of us! I am doing no wrong!'

"I am afraid that this message reaches you in dire times. Yesterday, a performance by the Royal Orchestra was interrupted by a group of hooligans who infiltrated the orchestra posing as members. Prior to the beginning of the second half of the performance, they trapped two of our ensemble in a bathroom and took their places. As the performance was due to re-start, the three of them began their own performance, much to the disgust of everypony present. They were swiftly stopped and removed from the building, and I can report the remainder of the performance continued without trouble.

One of the three has been identified as Octavia Philharmonica , who had been invited to play in the absence of one of our cellists. The other two remain as of yet unidentified. We are currently working towards having the three of them permanently banned from the venue, as well as any of our future performances.

Enclosed is a recording of the incident in question for reference, and to allow you to judge the severity of the punishment they shall face when caught.

Humbly,

Set Tempo

The Royal Orchestra"

Luna turned her attention to the reel sitting next to the letter, presumably the mentioned recording of the incident. Picking it up in her magical grasp, she ventured out to go and find a projector, interest piqued.

10 minutes later, Luna was in her chambers, loading the film reel into the projector. Satisfied, she flipped the switch to on, and watched the scene unfold, following what the letter had described.

The curtains opened, revealing the orchestra, and the crowd fell silent. The conductor, who Luna recognized as Set Tempo, made his way to the front of the stage, and turned to face the orchestra. As he was about to start, a surf green mare blazed into action on a lyre, producing a nasty, distorted sound. A few seconds later, a white unicorn joined in on percussion, and a grey earth pony on cello, presumably the aforementioned Octavia.

The orchestra looked on in horror at the performers in question, but they continued playing until the song reached an abrupt end. Set Tempo had pulled the power to the lyre and the cello respectively, rendering the distorted effect useless.

Improvised performance now over, Luna giggled at Octavia's exclamation of "Hoof it", and the subsequent panicked departure of the three mares, closely followed by a few furious members of the Royal Orchestra. The film then came to an end.

~

Set Tempo was surprised to find a letter waiting for him this morning, a letter with Luna's royal seal no less, he had not expected a response this quickly. He opened it and began to read.

5 minutes and several re-reads later, he was still having trouble coming to terms with the message. Instead, he opted to put the letter down and get some coffee. He needed coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

~

"Set Tempo,

"Thank you for bringing this incident to our attention. Should any of the ponies in question be located, we request that they send us a T-Shirt, and copies of any recordings they may have. Furthermore, we request an opportunity to attend one of their performances. Failing this, we extend an invitation to them to perform for us in the Palace.

Princess Luna"

~

Author's Note

Just a little something since I wanted to get back into the swing of writing stuff, even if I didn't really stop the long ago. Like, really, its only been about three weeks, or around that. I know its not great, but hey, its better than nothing.

Probably.

Kick Out The Jams

Chapter 11 : Kick Out The Jams

In which things start getting done

~

"Ooookay then...thank you. I think?" Octavia closed the door and stared dumbfounded at the letter the mailmare had given her.

"What was all that about?" Inquired Lyra.

"Well, we're banned from the auditorium, which is understandable."

"Mmmhmm..."

"And also, Princess Luna wants to hear our music. And she wants a band shirt?"

"Mmmhmm- Wait, come again?"

"Princess Luna saw a recording of what happened with the orchestra, and wants us to send her recordings and a shirt. And to see us play a gig."

"B-b-but we don't have an album! Or a shirt! Or any gigs!" Exclaimed Lyra.

"Not yet!" Vinyl interjected, poking her head out from above the stair case.

"How...How are you doing that?" Octavia asked Vinyl's upside down form, bemused.

"I-I don't know. Uh...help?"

~

The three of them sat around the table contemplating the letter. It was from the Seaddle Guard Force, informing them of the auditorium's decision to ban them until further notice, and of Luna's wishes regarding them. It was...odd, to say the least. Who would've guessed they would have gotten such a positive reaction From royalty, no less!

"So...um...what do we do? About this, I mean." Lyra gestured towards the letter.

"Isn't it obvious? We do what the letter says! We can't let the princess down!" Vinyl stomped a hoof for emphasis.

"Well, as nice as that might be, need I remind you that we have nothing in the way of, oh, I don't know, anything at all?" Octavia countered.

Vinyl sat silently for a moment, stroking her chin. "Hmm, wait here, I have a plan." With that she got up and left the house the dor closing with a thump.

"What is she up to?"

~

Vinyl cantered down the street towards her shop-come-house, greeting ponies she knew as she passed, this was her neighborhood, her domain. There was something in her shop that would help the situation at hoof along. Plus, she really should be checking up on the refurbishment of the shop, it'd been a month and a half since the fire now, so the build should be done pretty soon. She'd still need to re-do the whole shop front inside, though.

"Heya guys! How's it going?"

All the builders waved as she made her way upstairs and into the 'living' part of the building. Taking a chance to look around (she hadn't been home in over a month) she set about her task, entering the room that houses all her music gear.

Now for the tricky part.

~

There was a loud thump at the door, which Octavia answered. Vinyl staggered in with a...thing...on her back, and levitating a box covered in knobs and slidey things and a bunch of microphones and stands all bundled together.

She managed a wheezy "Honeys, I'm home!", and then promptly collapsed on the floor.

"Get up, you were only gone half an hour, you can't be that exhausted." Said Octavia, prodding Vinyl with a hoof.

"Yeah, and you didn't drag all this stuff from the shop."

"If you had told us what you were doing, we'd have been happy to help, Vinyl." Octavia countered.

"...Shut up..."

"What even is all this stuff?" Lyra inquired.

Vinyl gestured to the various pieces now spread around the floor. "Microphones and stuff. Mixer. And this is an 8-track recorder."

"Soo...?" Lyra said, confused.

"We're gonna record a demo!"

"Wait, here? Now?" Octavia interjected.

"Uhh, duh! C'mon, lets set this stuff up."

"Don't we need to go to a studio to record things? Isn't that how it works?" Asked Lyra.

"Well, thats what this is for!" Vinyl explained, patting the 8-track. "We record into this using the microphones, then use the mixer to adjust everything until its right. It wont sound as clean as a proper studio recording, but it'll get the job done, trust me. This is how I make my mixtapes and stuff."

"Well, what do we do?" Asked Octavia.

"Well Tavi, we'll need a room where we can fit all the instruments, and this stuff. So if you guys go and sort that out, I'll set all the recording stuff up and we can get started!"

~

The three of them stood around awkwardly in the newly re-purposed room, occupying what little space there was left.

"So now what?"

"Weeeeelllllllllll, now we record everything. We can't do it all at once, otherwise it sounds weird." Vinyl explained, once again. "So I'll record the drums, then Octavia can do her cello, Lyra can add in the lyre or guitar or what ever, then we add the vocals. After that, I'll level everything on the mixer, et voila, one demo tape!"

"So, which song do we do first? We only have, like, 7 anyway." Said Lyra.

"So thats 7 to go on the tape! I reckon we should do your Fluffgun '91, it'd make a pretty good opener."

"Well, get to it then!" Lyra said, pushing Vinyl towards the drums.

"Uh, Lyra, sweetie, you know I have to set everything up to record if we want to record anything." Vinyl deadpanned. Lyra just grinned sheepishly.

~

"...so I push this slider here up to bring in the guitar." Vinyl pushed said slider up, and the guitar levels increased, as promised. "And there we are! One song recorded onto tape!"

"This is so exciting!" Lyra beamed.

"I must say, I'm getting rather into it now." Octavia added. "So, whats next?"

"We should really make a list...We've done Fluffgun, so how about we record Ponyville?"

"I don't see why not. Lets get to it!" Vinyl returned to her drum kit.

~

"Going back to Ponyville!"

"Don't ask why!"

"Going back to Ponyville!"

"Don't ask why!"

"Going back to Ponyville!"

"Don't ask why!"

"ITS A GOOD A PLACE AS ANY TO GO AND DIE, ITS A GOOD A PLACE AS ANY TO GO AND DIE!"

Vinyl brought the volume down on the mixer, ending the playback. It had been two days, but all their songs had been recorded and mixed. All that was left to do was to duplicate the tapes so they could hand them out.

"Well, what do you think?" Vinyl asked nervously.

"That, was amazing! I was all "Going back to Ponyville", and Tavi was all "Don't ask why", and the drums, and the everything!" Lyra said, very, very enthusiastically.

"Its not the best quality recording, but I'm rather proud of out little project." Added Octavia.

"Well, thats good. All I need to do now is get this onto some cassettes. Shouldn't take more than a few hours, then we can spread our music around!" Vinyl finished with a slight flourish.

~

"Your highness, a delivery for you just came in from Seaddle."

The guard relinquished the packed to Luna, bowed, and set off away from her chambers. Luna closed the door and began to carefully remove the packaging, revealing a letter, and a cassette tape.

"Hiya Luna!

Thanks a bunch for listening to our music. We don't have an album or anything yet, but we recorded this demo tape for you! Also, when we have t-shirts we'll send one too!

Laters!

Vinyl, Octavia, Lyra.

P.S. Tavi says she thinks she should've written the letter. ~ Vinyl"

"Zounds! It seems they work fast!" Luna exclaimed, as she realised what the package was. It had only just been a week since she'd received the letter and video tape from Set Tempo.

She levitated the tape over for a closer look. The cover was a black and white copy of a hoof-drawn mare laughing. The title simply read "Mudhinney ~ Noisey Demos" and on the back was the tracklist.,

"1. Fluffgun '91

You Got It (Keep It Out Of My Face)

Here Comes Sickness

Flat Out Bucked

Burn It Clean

In 'N' Out Of Grace

Ponyville"

She loaded the tape into the cassette player and hit play. The now familiar riff of Fluffgun '91 broke the silence of her room, sounding so much better than the version on the projector footage. Luna grinned.

'Yes, this pleases us greatly!'

Celestia however, was much less pleased to be awoken by the racket emanating from Luna's room, and made it very clear from the entrance she made, definitely one of the angriest room-entries in recorded history.

No doubt.

~

Foreign Lawns

Chapter 12 : Foreign Lawns

In which a something nice is arranged

~

Ponies milled around the shelves of the record store, browsing through the newly placed records. It was the grand re-opening of Vinyl's shop, which also meant it was the day that Vinyl and Lyra moved back out of Octavia's house.

Octavia and Vinyl were both working behind the counters, while Lyra ~~milled around commenting on the records the customers were looking at~~ worked out on the shop front. There was a large queue forming already; the store was packed. Everypony was eager to get records that weren't pop or classical, which, oddly, proved to be a struggle more often than not.

One of the big movers of the day, much to the shop team's surprise, was their own demo cassette, which Vinyl had haphazardly piled on the counter in the minutes before opening. It was only lunch time and they'd nearly run out of them. Though, this may be because Vinyl was including a tape with every purchase made, whether the customer wanted it or not.

It was all a part of Vinyl's tactic. See, the more ponies who heard it, the more ponies had heard it.

Solid.

~

It had been a pretty good day at the shop, being open for business really brings the customers in. Vinyl had closed up, Tavi had gone home, and Lyra was just doing whatever, as normal.

There was a nice atmosphere in Vinyl's house. There was Roy Neighers playing on the turntable, there was some snacks, stuff like that. It was all pretty chill until somepony started banging on the door. Loudly. Repeatedly. Vinyl grumbled and lifted herself from the sofa to go and see who would interrupt her relaxing times.She made her way down the stairs and unlocked the door, surprised to find Octavia stood there.

"Tavi? What are you doing here? You know, you interrupted our game of Hungry Hungry Hippogriffs?!"

"Sorry, but this is important!" Octavia replied, with a huge smile.

"Well, what is it?"

"Let me in, Lyra has to hear too!"

"Come on then." Vinyl sighed and turned to go back up the stairs, Octavia in tow. Reaching the top, they made their way into Vinyl's living room, finding Lyra laying upside down on the sofa, humming along to 'Everypony Loves The Sunshine' as the record played. There was indeed an abandoned game of Hungry Hungry Hippogriffs on the floor.

"'Sup Tavi?" Greeted Lyra.

"Big new, big big news!" Replied Octavia, still sporting a smile.

"Well, are you gonna tell us what it is, or just keep on grinning like a doofus?"

"Wellllllll, I got a call today from the guy who prints all the 'Below Classical' magazines, the ones you like, Lyra. He called up to say he'd heard our tape today, and that he'd be interested in signing us for the label he's starting!"

"No way!" Vinyl and Lyra replied, pretty much in unison.

"You better believe it! He said he'd be at our next live show to have a look, and then, if we want to and it all goes well, we'll be signed to 'Below Class'."

At this point Lyra started hyperventilating.

"This is amazing! We're gonna make records! This is so cool!-"

"Wait, next show?" Asked Vinyl. "We haven't done one show yet."

"-So excited! People are gonna hear our songs, and we'll go on tour, and-"

"And? A show is a show, is it not? All we need is to get booked, which shouldn't be too hard considering you gave everypony in the shop our demo."

"-And ponys will be buying our merch! T-Shirts! We would have band shirts to sell on tour, and-"

"Fair point. So what, now we just wait?"

"-Get drunk and crowd surf, then we'd smash all our stuff up, because we're signed to a label-"

"Pretty much." Octavia's pupils shrank right down, and she gasped sharply. "I NEED TO GET HOME! SOMEPONY COULD BE TRYING TO CALL RIGHT NOW!"

Octavia ran out the door and down the stairs as fast as she could, leaving a vaguely pony shaped dust cloud in Vinyl's house.

Vinyl just stood there dumbfounded. Lyra was still rambling.

"-having a fight outside the venue because security threw them out! Ponies would be fighting at our gigs, it'd be so important to them! And there would be jumping and dancing, and all kinds of fun, all because they came to listen to us! Us! Up on the stage in front of everypony, knowing they're all there just to come and listen to us live! Everypony would be getting drunk, and having a good time, it'd be so much fun! And we'd be getting paid to do it! We'll get money for making music! And we can record our music proper, and put out proper records to sell in shops all around Equestria! I have to tell everypony! This is just amazing, no pony will believe me! I can't believe me! This is so incredible, I can't wait!"

~

It was 2 AM. No pony should be knocking on the door at 2 AM. Its 2 AM, far too early/late for anything. Octavia was tired, and whoever was coming to visit at this ridiculous time was responsible, so she already wasn't happy with them, even if she had no idea who it was.

She reached the door and opened it, keeping the chain on in case they tried to force their way in. No chances. She was a little surprised to find that it wasn't an attacker at her door, but Vinyl, looking pretty terrible. She took the latch off and opened the door fully.

"Vinyl? Its 2 in the morning! What are you doing here?"

"You remember when you came over to tell us about getting signed?"

"Yeah."

"You remember Lyra's reaction to that?"

Octavia recalled Lyra's endless word-spewing from earlier and nodded.

"She's still doing it."

"But...but that was six hours ago!"

"Yes, and she hasn't stopped since. I'm planning to stay the night here, and if she hasn't stopped by the time I go over to open the shop, then...I dunno, I'll slap her or something."

"Fair play, come in." Octavia turned around and walked, followed by Vinyl, and the sound of a closing door.

"You can go in the spare room I guess, you know where everything is, right?" Octavia turned around, only to be presented with a sleeping Vinyl, on the floor just shy of the door.

"Fine then, have it your way, I'll just drag you to the sofa." Octavia muttered to herself.

~

"-And then we'll get famous and make lots of money, and everypony will know who we are! They'll talk about our shows, and records, and everything! We'll get to do interviews! They'll be all over magazines, and everything! Everypony will talk about it and they'll all know that WE ARE MUDHINNEY!"

"Hey, where is everypony?"

Lyra looked around Vinyl's now empty home. The clock read 6:43, and the sky was slightly orange. She found a note on the table near where she had been sitting.

"Lyra, if you're reading this it means you've stopped talking, hopefully. I don't know what time you're reading this, but you started at 8 PM, so work it out."

"I was talking for almost eleven hours?" She asked herself.

"I couldn't sleep with you rambling on, so I went to stay at Tavi's house for the night. As I said wrote, hopefully you've stopped rambling now, because I want to sleep in my own place, and we all have work to do today.

Vinyl"

Lyra's ears flattened against her head as she read the note.

"Oooh, I'm sorry Vinyl. I'll make it up to you, somehow."

She looked back at the clock. It was only two and a quarter hours until the shop was meant to be opened, so Vinyl and Tavi would be coming soon. So Lyra thought.

...

"THATS IT!"

~

Special Agent Conrad Uno

Chapter 13 : Special Agent Conrad Uno

In which we question the eternal wonders of space, and time

Okay, not really, but it does get a bit spacey

...

And there might also be a beatdown

~

'Guuuuuuuuuh.' Thought Vinyl.

"Guuuuuuuuuuuh." Said Vinyl. She was definitely not a morning pony. Especially having gotten very little sleep, and waking up somewhere that wasn't where she fell asleep (even if it was only a really short distance away from where she was now), nor did she appreciate being poked into consciousness.

"Wake up you lump." Octavia sighed, and continued prodding Vinyl with her hoof.

"Pffft. Too early. Not enough sleep." Vinyl rolled over to escape Octavia's onslaught.

"Its 8. You've been asleep for six hours, the shop opens in an hour, get up." Octavia resumed her prodding.

"SIX IS NOT ENOUGH!"

"Six hours of sleep is perfectly reasonable-"

"Come back in three, maybe four hours. Then I'l be up and about." Vinyl cut Octavia off.

"You stay up until stupid hours all the time, and you always open the shop at 9, why is it different now?"

"It's your house, 'Tavi." Vinyl explained, without moving from her defensive position on the sofa. "I never had to get up early while' I was staying here, and my brain doesn't like it. Now, if you'll excuse me." She pulled the covers up over her head.

"Vinyl, I am not dragging you all the way to the shop." Octavia said in a stern tone.

"Don't then. Leave me here and I'll swing by in, like, three hours."

"You are unbearable sometimes Vinyl Scratch." Octavia turned and left the house, slamming the door behind her.

'FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINALLY." Vinyl thought.

Then she went back to sleep.

~

Octavia approached the shop in a huff, still annoyed by Vinyl. At least Lyra was there so the shop could at least be opened. If she'd snapped out of whatever trance she was in, anyway. Otherwise there'd be no way to get any actual work done until Vinyl showed up, which she doubted was guaranteed to happen.

Drawing closer, she began to hear some pretty freaky sounds emanating from somewhere in the local area. Picking up speed (and keeping an eye out for UFOs and/or the living dead) she found that the noise only got louder the closer she got to the shop.

Rounding the corner and heading onto the street where the shop was, she found a small group of ponies stood outside. Heading for the door, she noticed that there was a large banner hanging over the door, reading 'FREE MYSTERY CONCERT TODAY!'. The shop was also still closed, shutters blocking her view inside, and now the noise was louder than ever. She made her way through the group of ponies stood around the door, and headed inside.

"SURPRISE!" Lyra jumped out from behind a shelf, causing Octavia to rear up and knock over a big box of 7"s. "Heeeey, where's Vinyl?" Lyra asked, deflating a little from the white unicorn's absence.

"Lyra....you....me...heart attack...." Octavia wheezed out, clutching a hoof to her heart.

"Eheheh...sorry 'Tavi..." Lyra offered a sheepish grin and rubbed the back of her head. "But where is Vinyl?"

"At my house, being to lazy to show up to her own house."

"Oh...its just I organised all this for her...to say sorry..."

"She should be here later. She better be here later." Octavia muttered angrily. "What is 'all of this', anyway?"

"So, I read Vinyl's note about how she had to go to your place to fall asleep, and that made me feel bad. So then I thought 'how can I cheer Vinyl up?' And this idea came straight into my head! Come have a look see!" Lyra started dragging Octavia towards the back of the shop, which was now home to a drum kit and a number of amplifiers, as well as some weird glow-y coils and a box with some antennas coming off of it, with a single pony tinkering with said box.

"Hey Loco!" Lyra shouted "Say hi to Octavia!"

He waved his hoof, causing the box generate wavy noises, which he frowned at, and went back to adjusting the knobs on the machine.

Lyra giggled and turned back to Octavia. "That's Loco The Electronic Ape Mage. He plays bass and theremin!"

"Theremin?" Octavia mused.

"This here box!" Loco exclaimed, and began waving all around the instrument, making noise for effect.

"Fascinating!" Octavia trotted closer for a better look at the machine. It was just a small box with an aerial either side, one straight and one curled.

"Try it out! Watch!" Loco again waved his hooves around, generating random noise.

Octavia lifted a hoof towards the vertical antenna, and the theremin generated a tone. The tone got more shrill and higher pitched the closer she got to the antenna. She was captivated by it.

"Come on 'Tavi, lets go find the other guys."

"B-but Lyra! Look at this thing!"

"Yeah, its amazing, but you gotta come meet these guys!"

"No. I want one." Octavia turned around and started messing with the theremin again.

"Fine, we'll do it the hard way."

Lyra picked Octavia up with her magic, extracting an audible 'squeak' from the grey mare. She began to walk off, dragging Octavia through the air behind her.

"LYRA! PUT ME DOWN! I WANT TO PLAY WITH THE THING!"

Lyra kept on walking away.

"Pleaaaase?"

Again, no response from Lyra.

"Hmph."

~

~~Vinyl had elected to get out of bed~~ Vinyl had rolled over too far and had fallen off of Octavia's sofa and was currently too busy being lazy to get back up. A glance at the clock revealed that it was 10:30.

'I did say I'd come in by 11...

But 'Tavi's floor is soooo comfy...

That train of thought brought her back to Octavia and the bad mood she had the last time they had spoken. Because of Vinyl. She decided that getting up and going to work was marginally better than being killed to death by an irate 'Tavi. She stretched her legs, put on her glasses, and headed out the door to the shop.

~

"How many guitars did you say you had?!" Octavia gasped.

"24." Star Dust casually confirmed. "I only use this one, though." He gestured to the one currently held in his magic.

"Then why, pray tell, do you have so many?"

Star Dust just shrugged, and lowered the visor on his space helmet. "Why not?"

"Thats like asking why we bring, like, 50 sci-fi b-movies with us wherever we go!" Interjected Pegastuff, the drummer.

"And why do you do that?"

"Why not? I literally just said." He rolled his eyes.

Octavia sighed, Lyra giggled.

"Hey Lyra, we're all set up, you want to start letting them in?"

"Sure thing Star Dust." Lyra turned to Octavia "'Tavi, be a dear and start letting everypony in please?"

"Why can't you?"

"Because, I'm needed on stage." With that, Lyra donned a space helmet of her own and levitated her battered red guitar towards her.

"Wait, you're playing? As in, now, with these guys?"

"Yes? They're a guy down, and I have a guitar and know a bunch of their songs. Besides, I've known them for ages anyway. How do you think I got them to play here?"

"I always said we should've replaced him with a robot. Robots don't get sick." Pegastuff again interjected. Octavia just sighed and went to open the door.

"Just saying."

~

'Hmmm, there's never been this many ponies waiting around outside before...'

Vinyl made her way to the front of the crowd, and found the shop to still be shut. It also had a massive 'FREE MYSTERY CONCERT TODAY' banner hanging above the door, which was new.

'Aw, what did I miss this time?'

Just then the door swung open, revealing a slightly exasperated looking Octavia.

"Ah, Vinyl, I see you finally decided to show up!"

"'Tavi, whats going on? Whats with all these ponies?"

Octavia simply pointed a hoof up to the banner above the door, her face un-amused.

"Yes, I read the banner! I mean, like, what is actually happening?" Vinyl said, now getting slightly annoyed.

"I would say ask Lyra, since its her idea, but they're about to start, so you'll have to wait. And can you hurry up and get inside already? You're holding everypony else up!"

Vinyl looked to the crowd behind her, and revived a number of impatient stares. She walked inside, as did all the others. The counter area had been cleared and now had a board over it, creating a stage. There were glow-y things around, and right near the door was a projector, beaming the phrase 'Mare...or ASTRO-MARE?' onto the back wall of the shop. The crowd 'oooh'ed and 'aaaah'ed at the setup.

After a few minutes, the band members clambered onto the stage, Lyra bringing up the rear. They all stood in position, as the projection changed. Suddenly, a sound clip from a corny old B-movie began to play, and just as suddenly the band launched into the song. The crowd whooped and cheered, and jumping broke out around the 'stage'.

Octavia was slightly disappointed that the theremin had not made a re-appearance since the soundcheck earlier.

~

Half an hour in, the band were jerking around to a weird noisy intro. Lyra had taken up Loco's bass, as he had to operate the theremin (much to Octavia's delight). A burst of guitar, and the song kicked in proper. It was a fast one.

~

The set was nearing the end when Lyra spotted something. Something in the crowd. There, leaning on the wall near the door, was a red pegasus. A red pegasus with a flame for her cutie mark. Lyra could actually feel the anger inside of her. It didn't matter to her if she was mid song, this pony was not getting away again.

"YOU!" Lyra pretty much exploded into the mic, pointing at the pony in question. Lyra took of her guitar as the song spluttered and died. She also took this moment to lock the door with her magic, so Miss Pyromaniac couldn't leave. The pegasus gulped, and tried to slink away.

Lyra wasn't having it. She bounded off the stage and into the crowd, managing to surf her way at least halfway to the back. From there it was a sprint in-between onlookers. She burst out of the last throng of ponies and quickly identified her target.

Her target, however, had other ideas, and bolted for the front of the crowd, hoping to get lost again.

It didn't work.

"Oh, no, nonono." Lyra picked up the pegasus with her magic, rendering her immobile. "Not again. You don't get away this time."

Seething with rage, Lyra brought the mare face-to-space helmet with herself.

"Uh...I'm s-sorry?" She offered.

Lyra blinked once. Then twice. Then she smacked the pegasus 'round the jaw. More than once.

"Call the guard!" Lyra shouted "This is the arsonist!"

Pretty much the whole crowd gasped and began murmuring. Octavia ran off to fetch some guards. Vinyl stood there in shock, and Lyra continued to better aquatint her hoof with the mare's face.

With nothing left to do, the band started playing again, sans rhythm guitarist.

~

"Well, that was...interesting." Octavia commented, sweeping up the mess that was currently the shop floor.

"I never knew how scary Lyra could be..." Vinyl replied "It was pretty amazing though. The things you can do to somepony you regard only with pure hate..."

"I'm baaaack!" came Lyra's sing-song voice from the door.

"So, what happened?"

"They just asked me about how I knew, what I did. Stuff like that. They said they had enough evidence to put her away for a long time! I hope she rots."

"Don't you think you're being a tad harsh, Lyra dear? You already hit her until you broke her foreleg. And your foreleg." Octavia pointed out.

"Hey! I only broke her foreleg. Mine is just sprained. She deserved what she got." Lyra defended.

"Whatever, what I want to know is how we're going to play to the label guy if you can't play!" Vinyl said.

Lyra wore a deadpan expression on her face, and levitated her guitar over to herself, playing a few chords in the process.

"Oh."

Lyra looked around the shop. Quite frankly, it was a mess.

"Sweep the floor then go to sleep?" She asked.

"Sounds like a plan." Octavia agreed.

Vinyl was already unconscious on the floor at just the mention of sleep.

~

Touch Me I'm Sick

Chapter 14 : Touch Me I'm Sick

I'm a creep, yeah, and I'm a jerk

~

"Hey guys! I have an idea for-"

"Not now Lyra!" Vinyl continued glaring out of the shopfront from the counter. Outside of the shop was a certain red pegasus, albeit with a guard supervising her.

It had been two weeks since Third Degree's trial. Despite a huge amount of evidence, it was deemed she was not fit to be held accountable for her actions, and had been sentenced to corrective therapy, with 200 hours of community service. This didn't leave the crew of the shop, or any other of the ponies who's property had been burnt, particularly happy. Frankly, it was a wonder nopony had died in the fires, although the fact nopony did die may have had something to do with how light the sentence was.

Without warning, Vinyl grabbed Lyra's guitar by the neck and bolted for the front door of the shop. Unnoticed by anyone except Vinyl, the guard supervising Third Degree had gone off on a break, leaving her alone outside the shop.

~

It'd been a pretty alright day so far. Third Degree had spent the last few hours picking up litter around the place. Her supervisor had just gone to go and get lunch, so she was just picking up crud around the street until he got back.

It had all been going well, until the door to the shop she'd been outside burst open, revealing a very, very angry unicorn wielding an upside-down guitar.

She pointed at Third Degree.

Third Degree gulped.

A terrifying smile broke across the unicorn's face as she slowly came towards Third Degree.

"RUN SHITHEAD RUN!"

She broke into a gallop.

Third Degree looked down at her cast, then back to the approaching mare. She could not break into a gallop. So she hobbled away as fast as she could, the white unicorn easily closing the distance.

Third Degree was so caught up in what was happening, she completely forgot that she was capable of flying away.

~

"Hey 'Tavi!"

"Vinyl? Where are you? You've been gone for two hours!"

"Yeah, about that. I sorta need you guys to collect me from custody."

"..."

"'Tavi?"

"Can't we just have one normal month?"

"What?"

"Vinyl, what did you do?"

"I may have chased 'Miss Burns-A-Lot' down the street with Lyra's guitar."

"Don't you think you've got back enough? Lyra already broke her leg, and she's been sentenced."

"She burnt down my home!"

"It didn't 'burn down', Vinyl, it-"

"Don't get pedantic, just please come and get me."

The phone let out a monotone 'beep'. Octavia sighed, hung it up, and made for the door.

"Hey 'Tavi! I have this-"

"Sorry Lyra, I have to go and get our idiot from the guards, tell me when I get back." Octavia sighed again, and left.

Lyra just 'Hmph'd.

~

"How can I help?"

"Yes, I think you have an imbecile for me to collect?"

"Ah yes, if you just want to follow the guard by the door over there." She pointed to the right of the booth. "Tell him who you're here for, and they'll be right out."

Octavia made her way to the guard as instructed, just wanting to collect the aforementioned imbecile and leave.

"Hello there, I'm here to collect an imbecile, white coat, blue mane, had a guitar with her."

The guard nodded and went through the door. He emerged again a couple of minutes later with Vinyl in tow behind him. She looked less than impressed by the whole ordeal.

"Is this the imbecile?" The guard asked.

"Hey! I'm not-"

"Yes, this is the imbecile, thank you."

"'Tavi! I'm not-mmhp?" Vinyl's complaint was interrupted by a grey hoof to the mouth.

"Come, imbecile, you have paperwork to do."

~

"Ugh, this is so boring!" Vinyl threw several papers into the air, exasperated. "And this," She indicated to the dunce cap on her head, "Is just plain degrading."

"Degrading, but true." Lyra and Octavia said in unison, then casting confused glances at each other, only serving to aggravate Vinyl further.

"I don't see why I have to do this!"

"Because you're the one who attempted to use my guitar as a bludgeoning tool." Stated Lyra.

"And because Lyra needs her guitar back and this is how it is done." Stated Octavia.

"This isn't fair, its my guitar too!" Vinyl slammed a hoof down onto the offending paperwork.

"Oh, of course, and the fact that it belongs to you gives you much less of a reason to want it back." Octavia rolled her eyes, Vinyl just grumbled.

"This isn't fair!" She mentally raged. "This isn't even my fault, its all Third Degree's fault! If she never set fire to the shop, none of this would be necessary." Vinyl now wore a scowl. "And even after she gets caught, she has to be working near the shop! She's such a creep...and a jerk." Her scowl deepened. "And then they say she can't be held responsible for her actions because of a brain problem. Puh-leeeease. Thats a real easy trick to pull, anypony could do it. 'Oh, not my fault, I'm sick. Can't touch me!' Ridiculous.

Glancing back down at the forms infront of her, Vinyl found that instead of the relevant information, the sheet was now covered with graffiti that she figured she must have done subconsciously. The most noticeable of which was the word 'sick' scrawled along the bottom, surrounded by others.

"Creep, jerk, can't, touch, sick...Heh, this is alright I guess." Her face fell. "'Tavi is gonna kill me though. Or at the very least call me an imbecile again and make me get some more forms." Vinyl sighed and rested her head on the table. "Of course, she'll say it was my fault. Again. Heh, maybe I should play the mental illness card... She scrawled out the word 'I'm' onto the page, nestled against 'sick'.

"Heh."

She began scribbling more, ruining the form in the process (as if she cared), but it didn't matter her brain was on a roll here.

"Maybe if I..."

The entire bottom half of the page was obscured by ink now. The neatly organised page was now covered in words scrawled out in a haphazard, almost violent manner. It was messy to look at, and Vinyl liked it. She got up from the table and walked into the living room, the page hovering beside her.

"Hey 'Tavi! Look at this!" She levitated the page in between Octavia's face and the book she was reading.

"Wow Vinyl!" She exclaimed.

Vinyl beamed.

"You ruined your form!" She continued, in the same chipper voice.

Vinyl wilted. Octavia simply glared at her. Vinyl sighed.

"I'll go and get another one..."

~

Vinyl shivered a little in the breeze. It was spring now, but it could still get a bit chilly every now and then.

"Could be worse."

It started raining.

"I absolutely hate everything."

She continue onwards to the police station.

~

There was a knock at the door, which Octavia answered. Behind it was a positively drenched Vinyl Scratch, holding the limp, soaked remains of the paperwork she had set out to collect.

"Vinyl-"

"ACHOO" Octavia reeled back from her friend. Vinyl just looked at her. "Don't touch me, I'm sick." She snorted in an attempt to free her airways. Making her way into the kitchen, she spared a glance at the ~~ruined~~ old paperwork on the table, a few words suddenly sticking out to her. Notably, 'touch', 'sick' and 'jerk'. A small smile graced her face.

"Hey 'Tavi." Vinyl said, her voice sounding weird with a blocked nose.

"Touch me," she held out a hoof "I'm sick."

Octavia just stared at her blankly. Vinyl moved closer.

"Touch me, I'm sick!" She held out her hoof again, this time Octavia retracted.

"Ehhehe...no thanks."

Vinyl leveled an angry stare at her.

"Touch me. I'm sick."

With that, she sprung into action, bounding towards Octavia. Reacting fast Octavia turned and ran.

"TAVI GET BACK HERE!"

"EW, NO! YOU'RE DISEASED!"

"AND I DON'T MIND!" Vinyl shouted, catching up to Octavia.

By now, they had made their way through the entire bottom floor of the house, and were on the stairs. One well placed hoof from Vinyl sent Octavia tumbling over the top, coming to a stop at a wall.

"Hey 'Tavi."

Octavia looked up.

Vinyl pressed her face up against Octavia's cheek.

"Touch me, I'm sick."

Octavia sneezed.

"YES! I WIN!" Vinyl began bouncing around the hall, coming to an abrupt halt once she started coughing. "Oh, right, I'm sick..."

"Okay, maybe I DO mind.

Meanwhile, Lyra was sat downstairs, continuing to read through the latest issue of 'Below Classical'.

"I don't know what just happened, and I don't care."

She had accepted long ago to never question Vinyl's actions, as Vinyl rarely thought them through herself either. She was snapped out her stupor when she was addressed directly, and loudly, and whine-ily.

"Lyyyyyyrrrraaaaaaaa, I'm sick, and 'Tavi is too sick to take care of me, so you need to take care of 'Tavi so she can take care of me, before you get sick."

What.

~

Six Pack

Chapter 15 : Six Pack

In which they actually do what they set out to do

~

Having recovered from her brief bout of sickness a couple of days ago, Vinyl was having a pretty good Wednesday. Business had been pretty good all morning, and she had a toasted sandwich for lunch. Right now, she was leaning on the counter, daydreaming. It was a pretty great sandwich, after all. Like, for real.

Seriously, this sandwich.

Her crusty musings were interrupted by the ringing of the phone. This presented a dilemma: the phone was in the back, but Tavi was out on her own lunch break, and Lyra didn't actually work here, and just sort of came and went as she saw fit. Which, unfortunately, wasn't now. The shrill, repetitive tone continued to eat away at her until she begrudgingly conceded, and with ~~great~~ exaggerated effort, answered the phone.

"Hello, The Vinyl Shack V. 2.0, how can I help?"

The pony on the shop side of the counter waited patiently while Vinyl was busy. It was sorta awkward, really, but what else could he do?

"Yes, that's me."

"Yes, I know it."

"Uh huh..."

"Well, I'll have to ask-"

"Wait, as in 'play a gig' gig?"

"HELL YES WE CAN!"

"This Saturday?"

"And we bring all our own stuff?"

"Wonderful, thank you very much!"

Vinyl slammed the phone back into the receiver and proceeded to moonwalk out of the office and back out to the counter, where she just continued to circle around repeatedly, in the same moonwalk-y fashion, much to the amusement of the waiting stallion, and bemusement of Octavia, who had just come back from her lunch break.

After a minute or two, the customer's amusement was replaced by impatience, clearing his throat loudly several times in order to get Vinyl's attention. It didn't.

Octavia stepped forwards and waved a hoof at the still moonwalking mare, only to receive the same non-responsiveness as the stallion.

"Uh, Vinyl?"

"Not now, busy." She replied, not even glancing at Octavia, lest she break the thang she had going on.

Octavia just sighed, when Vinyl got like this it was oftentimes easier to just do what Vinyl should've been doing herself rather than coax her out of whatever shtick she'd gotten into. She probably wont even be responsive for an hour or so.

Sighing again, Octavia made her way behind the counter, giving Vinyl a wide berth so as to avoid bumping into her as she continued to reverse.

"Sorry sir, can I help you?"

~

Two days.

Well, two whole days. More like 'two days and four fifths of a day'.

This was how long they had to practice as a band for the gig Vinyl had accepted to play. Not including time spent at the shop, sleeping, eating, whatever. So really, just a matter of hours to prepare.

Not enough time, according to Octavia, her disciplined, classical roots re-surfacing. Upon being told about the gig by Vinyl, she immediately launched herself into a panicked frenzy, galloping home as fast as she could and launching right into rehearsing her cello parts, until she got a call from Lyra indicating that practicing as a band would make much more sense.

"Ok, so this is whats going to happen." Octavia commanded, trotting back and forth around the instrument-stuffed room.

"We, are going to play our songs. All of them. After each song I'm going to point out every mistake, and we'll do it again until there are no mistakes."

Octavia turned to face her bandmates, only to get blank stares in return.

"W-what?"

Lyra shook her head. "Tavi, you can't be a perfectionist and make garage-y punk-y music. It's all imperfections."

"I'm not being a perfectionist! This is how I always practiced!"

"Yes, while you were with the orchestra, this is different. Relax, Tavi! Go get a beer or something and phone up Mr. Ponyman from Below Class while we finish setting up."

Octavia opened her mouth as if to argue, but whatever she had to say died in her mouth, and she instead turned for the door.

"Oh, hey Tavi! Bring the rest of the beers back with you!" Vinyl shouted after her.

Octavia let out her third sigh of the day.

"Oh, and we need to send a superspeedyfast letter to the princess, too!"

Octavia knew that 'we' meant that she was doing that as well.

~

This was it. Saturday had arrived, work had come and gone, and now the show was mere hours away. Lyra and Vinyl were chatting excitedly in anticipation of their live debut. Octavia, however, was a nervous wreck.

'What if it goes wrong?'

'What if they don't like it?'

'Did we definitely get the timing to 'Here Comes Sickness' right at the end?'

'Is the order of the set list okay?'

'Do we have-'

"OW!"

Octavia was snapped out of her stupor, courtesy of an empty beer can thrown by Vinyl. She returned the distraction with an annoyed glare.

"Not funny."

"Jeez, chill out, Tavi!" Came Vinyl's retort.

She couldn't 'chill out', not while the prospect of everything going horrifically wrong was still possible. They even had to complicate things further by including one of Lyra's new songs, and covering Sonic Foal's 'Nightmare Night'. Even so, it was still a pretty short set. If it did get catastrophic, at least it would be over quickly.

~

Octavia was jittery all through soundcheck, and she didn't know why. She had played to much larger audiences than the one she anticipated would attend tonight. Maybe it was the fact that ~~all~~ most more than one of the songs she had written herself. Playing with the orchestra, she never was able to play any of her own pieces, she'd only been able to play them solo.

Perhaps what was getting to her was the fact that if the crowd didn't like her songs, she couldn't blame the composer. She was the composer. If the songs were bad, it was her own fault. For her songs, anyway.

Maybe it was the fact that a pony who would effect the direction of her life would be in attendance.

Maybe it was the fact that royalty had asked to come and watch.

Truthfully, she didn't know.

"Tavi, what's wrong?" Lyra asked, trotting up beside her.

"Oh, it's nothing..."

"Come now, I can see something is bothering you. Take a seat and tell old uncle Lyra the problem."

Octavia was about to point out everything wrong with what Lyra just said, but Lyra spoke again before even giving her a chance.

"I know the solution to your problem!" She exclaimed, before leaning in close to Octavia's ear.

"It's beer."

Before she could react, Lyra had practically forced a can of beer down her throat with her magic, leaving a coughing and irritated Octavia.

"LYRA! WHAT. THE. HELL?!"

"Hmm, that's not right, Maybe more beer will work."

Lyra repeated the process, once again leaving Octavia nearly breathless.

"See, isn't that better?"

Octavia had to admit, she wasn't nervous anymore. Just angry at Lyra.

~

8:30 Doors opened. 9:00 Band starts.

The band watched excitedly as literally TENS of ponies filled the venue. A quick glace also confirmed the presence of Mr. Ponyman from Below Class. They were all set to go, and with 5 minutes to spare!

It did slightly dishearten them, however, that their #1 fan was nowhere to be seen in the crowd. It didn't bother them too much, she was a princess after all, she was probably too busy princessing. Or maybe the letter arrived too late, or something. Still, it would have been nice to finally give her the shirt she wanted. Pushing these thoughts aside, Octavia glanced around one more time, making sure everything was set up correctly.

Satisfied, and with the time approaching, she gestured for the band to come out, much to the delight of the hundred or so drunk ponies below.

Wordlessly, they launched straight into the oh so familiar Fluffgun '91.

The crowd loved it.

~

'Oh my!' Thought a certain #1 fan, unseen backstage. 'This is different from hearing it on the tape.'

She continued to watch around the corner, so far avoiding being spotted by anypony. She could see the rhythmic rise and fall of the audience, along with the thrashings of Lyra, and a few ponies a the front of the crowd.

"Odd."

She continued to watch and listen intently.

"We like it."

~

The show was going really well, if not a bit strangely. Lyra could swear she heard the stage wall 'squee' at the mention of a new song, and she kept seeing something moving out of the corner of her eye.

With a shrug, she concluded that the venue was haunted, and continued with the show, starting to play 'You Got It'. The crowd liked that very much.

~

"Okay then guys, this'll be our last song of the night."

Groans filled the tiny venue.

'Drat, we were having such fun!'

"Hey, don't be like that. Its not like we have any more songs anyway!"

'Miss Heartstrings raises a fair point...'

A few seconds (and moans from the audience) later, the band had begun to play their final song of the set, 'In 'N' Out Of Grace'.

Luna's eyes widened. This was her favorite song, probably ever (much to Celestia's chagrin, considering the amount of 'air time' it now received in the castle), and she was missing out back here. She had to break cover.

She gingerly trotted out onto the stage, right as the drum break started. Octavia and Vinyl both looked to be in some kind of music-induced trance, and Lyra was galloping up and down the stage, jumping as she reached the middle like she was a part of a mildly drunken ballet.

Lyra paused, realising she was now sharing the stage, only to wear a wide smile as she realised who she was sharing it with. She gestured with a hoof for Luna to join in with her running and jumping. The crowd also seemed to agree with her. So Luna complied, the both of them running and jumping in opposite directions along the stage, all the while Vinyl and Octavia kept the break going.

'This is most fun!' Mused Luna 'Odd, but fun nonetheless!'

Soon enough, Lyra broke away from her acrobatic display in anticipation of the upcoming anti-solo. The drum roll came around and she launched herself backwards, gripping the guitar in random places, generating harsh squeals and dissonance.

While Lyra was busy thrashing around, Luna found herself awkwardly alone on the stage. The crowd seemed to notice this as well. It started out small, just a couple of ponies near the front shouting "JUMP!". This, however, caught the attention of more of the crowd, and they brought it to the attention of even more of the crowd, until almost the whole audience was chanting.

"JUMP! JUMP! JUMP!"

Luna was unsure, to say the least. She turned to Lyra for help, who simply smiled and nodded.

'When in Roam, I suppose...'

And on that day, in the tiny venue called 'The Old Rooms', Royalty did indeed crowd surf.

~

Half Life (Guest Chapter)

Chapter 16 : Half Life

In which a band comes to Seaddle. Things get loud...

~

"He asked her if her music was New Wave, and she sneeringly responded, 'More like No Wave'..."

(Robin Crutchfield on an interview where Lydia Lunch was asked about “Teenage Jesus…”)

~

“Are you sure about this, Vinyl?” Lyra said in a worried tone. “This club looks kinda… rough compared to the others…”

“I’m starting to have second thoughts too,” Octavia muttered and glanced at the gathering crowd.

There was nothing directly off-putting about them, at least as far as their appearance went. Most of them wore bland clothing, excluding the occasional leather jacket, studded belt or strap, and strange manecut thrown in. A closer look, however, made the two realize just how odd everypony behaved. Every motion and every voice, though quite harmless in its content, seemed to carry an unnameable presence, as though some ethereal creature had taken up residence in everypony’s body and was trying to speak through them.

“Aw, don’t sweat it, you two,” Vinyl replied with a laugh. She wrapped a reassuring hoof around both their necks and pulled them into a tight hug, making them both gasp. Giggling, she ignored any further protests and dragged them toward the entrance. “The Black Hole is a place everypony has to visit at least once in their lifetime. Besides, they’re saying the band for tonight is something really special.”

“If you say so, Vinyl…” Octavia muttered. She cast a worried glance to their left, where a young colt was busy very violently emptying his stomach. The mare gulped and quickly averted her gaze.

“Good evening, ladies!” the large bouncer at the door said. His polite smile grew even wider once he recognized the new arrivals. “Oh, hey there, Vinyl! New victims?”

“Just a couple of friends,” Vinyl replied with a wink. “They need to have a good time.”

“As always, I am at your service. The usual?”

“Hmm…” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Nah, I think I’ll take the green one this time. Had enough R&R last week.”

The bouncer nodded, dug through his pockets, and retrieved a small green pill, which he quickly slipped into Vinyl’s hoof. “And these two?” He gestured at the mare’s friends.

“Vinyl, what the hay is he talking about?” Lyra said. “This is getting weird.” She bit her lip and huddled together with Octavia. The latter said nothing, merely shuffled her hooves nervously.

Vinyl glanced back at them and shrugged. “Well, it’s their first time, so I think they should go in clean…” She gave a devilish grin. “For now…”

“All right.” The large stallion returned her grin and stepped aside. As the mares entered, the DJ quickly popped the pill into her mouth and used a bit of beer to wash it down, which she borrowed from a generous colt who lay passed out near the entrance.

Muffled murmuring and faint music seeped through the double doors as they approached it. Vinyl pushed the handle to open, upon which the murmurs grew into a steady and loud drone, while a wave of warm air washed over them, filled with the stench of booze, sweat, and dirt.

The interior of the club was no less unnerving for Vinyl’s friends. It was barely lit, not to mention the walls themselves were either painted black, or pockmarked with unnameable shapes and colors to form odd constellations. Even the exposed pipes and wires that ran along the walls were dressed up to fit in with the mysterious vibe, and with no decent lighting, everypony else inside formed a dark silhouette at best.

“Geez…” Lyra muttered. Her eyes traveled between all the macabre decorations on the walls. “It’s like walking into one of those dark caves with monsters in them…”

“It’s worse,” Octavia said. She gasped and stepped out of the way as somepony stomped their way through between them. “At least if we could see the monsters…”

Most of the crowd was gathered near the stage to their left, which was all geared up at this point, though no band was present yet. The bar lined the wall to their right, burdened by several long queues as everypony wanted at least one drink to accompany them to the show. Without hesitating, Vinyl dragged them there to get herself a fix as well. Since that part of the club seemed to have the most light, her friends did not object.

“All right!” she said eagerly. “What will you have?”

“Uhh…” Lyra scratched at her head awkwardly. “I’m good, thanks.”

“I’ll just have a Kamilla Cola,” Octavia said.

“Okay!” Vinyl gave a wide grin, turned back to the bar once they were next in line, and slammed her hoof onto the counter. “THREE PINTS, RIGHT FROM THE TAP!”

The bartender merely sighed in response to her outburst and began pouring their drinks. The DJ’s friends both stared at her in horror, which just made her chuckle.

“Is that…?” Lyra began. “That thing the bouncer gave you… Did it…?”

“Huh?” Vinyl said. “What, the pill?” She laughed again and waved it off. “Nah. It’s not working yet. I’m just excited. Aren’t you excited?”

Without waiting for them to respond, she grabbed the pints and shoved them into the hooves of her friends before taking a big swig from her own.

“Ahhh… That hit the spot…” she said. Taking another swig, she followed up with a loud burp and giggled like a foal at her own antics. Lyra and Octavia recoiled, nearly dropping their mugs in the process. They looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Oh, come on, girls!” Vinyl said and held out her mug. “This is not the night to be uptight.” She smirked. “Lighten up! Let’s have some fun!”

They shrugged and half-heartedly clinked their beers with hers, and the three drank in unison this time.

“Oh Celestia save me…” Octavia said. The odd taste of the overpriced and watered-down beer made her shudder. “So what is our entertainment for tonight anyway?”

“Huh?” Vinyl was already halfway done with her mug. “Oh, I don’t really know. The poster mentioned a band called ‘Angels’.”

“‘Angels’?” Lyra said. “Sounds pretty harmless.” She winced as one of the drunken stallions collapsed right next to her. “Well… compared to a place like this anyway…”

“If ya ask me, it sounds like a hoot!” Vinyl said with a laugh.

“Whatever you say…” Octavia muttered.

The three mares chatted away for a few minutes, after which Lyra excused herself to go find the fillies’ room, while Octavia said she wanted to find a place where they could sit down, just in case. That left Vinyl on her own, leaning against the bar and calmly sipping beer from time to time.

Huh… Maybe this stuff doesn’t work tonight? I better tell Alpini that his pills are defective…

As if on cue, there was a loud cry as a pair of colts between the stage and the bar got into a brawl over some misunderstanding. Moments later, the bouncer roared at them from the doorway and galloped inside, shoving one of the troublemakers against the wall before grabbing the other and tossing him across the chamber.

Vinyl’s jaw dropped as she watched the colt sail through the air, his body seeming to move in slow-motion. She could see every feature of his face twist in pure terror. His limbs flailed helplessly, and a wet patch formed on his pants over his crotch. He screamed, but his voice came out all wrong and distorted, like a record being played at the wrong speed.

A pair of new arrivals just barely managed to get out of the way as the kid flew right through the doorway and landed in a heap outside.

“And stay the fuck out!” Alpini bellowed after him. “And you!” He turned to the other colt and gestured toward the exit. “You too. Banned for life. Fuck off!”

Vinyl stared, mouth agape, as the bouncer worked on restoring order. The crowd around him seemed unnaturally calm and cooperative, considering how his limbs have somehow grown to monstrous proportions, and his voice was like an industrial engine had figured out how to speak. His eyes emitted a dull red glow, and black smoke billowed from his nostrils every time he exhaled.

With everypony eventually going back to how they were before the incident, Alpini calmly retreated to his post at the door, leaving behind a thoroughly shocked Vinyl, who could now breathe a sigh of relief. She took another sip from her beer and gave a wide smile.

Phew… Hard part’s over...

A sharp crack and a piercing whine rang out from the stage, cutting off her thoughts. It was followed by a near-deafening roar from a distorted guitar, combined with the booming and crackling of somepony mercilessly pounding the drums. A low-tuned bass smashed into every downbeat, the depth and volume rattling her bones, howling in her chest, and kicking around in her bowels.

Everypony fell silent, many of them visibly recoiling from the sudden onslaught. Vinyl, however, was rooted in place as she stared unblinking at the far end of the chamber, where a hoofful of ponies had assembled on stage and now worked on releasing the monstrosity that mauled the audience’s eardrums.

“PERMISSION IS BLOODLESS!”

The air itself seemed to punch the audience in the face. Every downbeat sent huge chunks of noise their way, topped by the shouting of the stallion up front. Vinyl had to take a step back and brace herself, the intensity of it all threatening to sweep her off her feet, or at least so she felt.

Her heart pounded in her head as she tried to take it in. The band itself was a crystal clear image, akin to a picture within a frame. Beyond the stage, however, colors bled and blurred together, as though she were looking at the surface of the water rippling from rocks hitting it. The bass player slammed his fist against the strings, and another wave burst forth to hit the crowd.

It hurt to look at. It made her head ache and her ears beg for mercy. A roar entered her veins: not one of excitement, but pure terror. Fear of total annihilation. Her insides boiled as the sound threatened to rip her to shreds.

She loved it. She wanted more.

After downing the rest of her beer, she held up her mug and threw it as hard as she could onto the floor. It was only when she looked down after it did she notice the remains of three other mugs next to the one she just destroyed. Shrugging, she wiped her lips and made her way toward the stage, her legs barely able to keep up with her.

“G-g-gangwaaaayyy…” she moaned through the deafening roar. “Comin’ through… s’cuse meeee…. I just gotta see these guys, that’s all… HEY! HOOVES OFF, BUDDY!”

She expected a moshpit to come up anytime soon. But it never came. She did eventually bump into a thicker wall of ponies, all of which stood motionless and stared like stunned cattle at the stage. She pushed her way through them, only to almost fall over from the sudden lack of resistance. As it turned out, the other side was completely empty, save for the occasional puddle of bile, and she soon found out why as her eardrums began a hasty and painful retreat into her skull.

Within just fifteen feet of the stage, existence itself seemed impossible. The downbeats came at her like slabs of concrete that crushed her bones, while the whine of the guitar drilled right into her brain and turned it into mush. Above all that, the aggressive voice broke through to grab her by the throat and choke her mercilessly. And she didn’t just hear and feel all of this; she could actually see the whole scene play out in a swirling mess of red and black muck.

Within moments, Vinyl decided that backing up might be a good idea after all. She stumbled backward and leaned against the wall of ponies behind her, who she now realized had formed up this way for the very same reason. A few unlucky ones who couldn’t make it out in time now had to lean out and throw up onto the empty space before them, while some had to pass out and hope the others would keep them propped up. Vinyl didn’t get why they reacted this way, but with the noise just below a bearable threshold here, she could finally turn her gaze to focus on the band onstage.

With the exception of the stallion on bass, who seemed the most animated among the backing band, none of the players moved about very much, their expressions little more than emotionless stares. The stallion up front, however, was nothing like them. His face twisted into pure cathartic release, combined with an unnameable desperation, as though he were trying to vomit the whole world up from his guts, he roared into the microphone while his body rocked back and forth violently, keeping up with the hammering beat. It was like a trance, one where he was both awake and under at the same time.

Vinyl was completely blown away by the scene before her. Never before could she have even dreamed up such a level of release, and now she was smack dab in the middle of it. For some reason beyond her understanding, she could even understand the lyrics through the cavalcade of brutal noise. It was as though someone took a videotape of various commercials, dipped it in sulphuric acid, and played it in slow motion.

Although the experience was ecstatic, to say the least, it didn’t take long before her ears needed a quick break. Besides, she didn’t have a beer in her hooves either, and that was just no good. Pushing her way through the crowd again, she stumbled back toward the bar. Along the way, she took a detour and made a quick “pit stop” in the bathroom, where she told the guys inside to stop staring and explained that a urinal is a perfectly good place for her to do her business. They seemed to agree, although it was hard to tell since all of their faces were melting for some reason.

Valuing beer over answers, Vinyl threw a hoofful of bits at the bartender and demanded another mug. The creature responded by spewing obscenities from its four mouths spread all over its chest and not giving her any booze. Frustrated, the mare decided it was about time she tried to hook up with a cute guy in the club, hoping they had well-loaded pockets that could sate her thirst.

Her eyes scanned the various malformed beings as they oozed slime around the bar, and eventually she noticed the very first candidate: a shy-looking colt that sat all alone, a glass of coke cradled in his hooves. With a grin a mile wide, Vinyl walked right up to him and patted him on the back.

“Heeey theeeere, handsome!” she slurred. Her snout poked right into the kid’s face. “Wanna go see how I wub the dub in the tub?”

Where the punch came from, she never found out. All she knew was that her skull had split open, her brain had left the building, and despite its hardness, the floor was suddenly the most comfortable place on the planet, and it was nap time. Her final thoughts echoed the loud noise still erupting from the stage.

“DON’T MAKE A WROOONG MOOOOOVE!”

Vinyl smiled as darkness swallowed her vision.

~

“Who the hay were those guys?”

Vinyl rocked back and forth in her chair eagerly. Moments later, she hissed as an ice-cold fluid poured onto her head, which somehow still managed to burn her scalp.

“Some weird band called ‘Angels’,” Lyra said. Sighing, she put down the spirit the bartender had offered her and prepared a roll of bandages. “I think they had to leave early. Something about a kid whistling at the mare member, and the singer climbing off to beat him senseless.”

Vinyl giggled. “Wow, can’t believe I missed that…”

“You’re lucky that’s all you missed,” Octavia said. “What the hay were you thinking, Vinyl?”

“What?” Vinyl shrugged with a grin. Half a messy turban now covered the wound on her head. “I was having fun.”

“You kept shouting into this guy’s face and asking if he wanted to dance. His girlfriend came back and smashed a bottle on your head. You almost started a riot!”

“Oh…” the unicorn blinked. “Well, that explains the bump. And the pain.” She rubbed at the wrappings on her head and winced again. “Ouch…”

“All done!” Lyra declared and leaned back. “I must say, aside from your little… adventure, this evening was… pretty exciting.”

“Indeed,” Octavia said with a tiny smile of her own. “It’s good to know we’re far from the only insane noise-making bunch out there.”

Vinyl laughed and put her shades back on. “Glad I could be of service,” she said and leaned back against the counter. “So, how about another beer?”

Her friends stared at her, wide-eyed. Moments later, they both slapped their hooves against their faces at the same time.

~

Author's Note

This Swanstastic chapter was written by the equally Swanstastic Dark Avenger. Go and thank him for his contribution. Yes, you, the three people who will probably read this message.

Just kidding, you guys are pretty okay by me.

Enjoy!

News Of The World

Chapter 17 : News Of The World

In which somepony has a bad day, I guess

~

"EXTRA! EXTRA!" Cried the foal, flogging the latest copy of the Seaddle Post.

"Child, are you selling the weekly paper?" Asked Octavia from her bedroom window.

"Yes'm! Just one Bit! Want one?" Replied the lovable scruffy urchin.

"Oh my, if you had asked later I would've said yes." Said Octavia. "But as it is right now YOU ARE SHOUTING OUTSIDE OF MY BEDROOM AT HALF FIVE IN THE MORNING! I would suggest you move on before I COME DOWN THERE AND SHUT YOU UP MYSELF."

The foal stood stock still, eyes wide, staring up at the grey earth pony, not entirely sure what to do.

"I WILL MESS YOU UP, KID! "

He ran, pretty swiftly at that. He even left behind his stock pile of papers, not even looking back.

Octavia can be scary as shit in the mornings.

Of course, Vinyl didn't know this. She'd never been up early enough to see morning Octavia, outside of work, anyway, but work was work, so she couldn't really be queen bitch.

Today was no exception to this. After the previous night's activities, the injured unicorn had stumbled her way into Octavia's home, and with Vinyl too drunk to walk properly, and Octavia too tired to argue, she stayed the night. She'd slept right through the actually-quite-loud exchange of words, and was currently (unknowingly) on the receiving end of a pretty disapproving look from Octavia. Probably to do with the blood-soaked bandage on her head and the flecks of vomit around her mouth.

Finishing with a huff, Octavia clambered back into her bed and attempted to claw back any extra sleep she could.

~

"Euuuughghghgh." Was the indication that Vinyl had woken up. Nopony but her knew it, but still.

"This isn't my houuuSSAAAAHG!" She groaned as she sat up too quickly, head injury AND hangover making themselves known. Also becoming apparent was the horrific taste in her mouth, and the fact that the way she'd slept had left her with two dead legs.

Why was she even on the floor of Octavia's bedroom, anyway? It was easily one of the less optimal spots for comfort in the house. Not that she was going to do anything about it, but dammit, she wanted an explanation! 'Octavia would probably have an explanation. She usually does, anyway. Or she just sighs and looks at me like an idiot-Hey! She thinks I'm an idiot!' Glancing up, she saw Octavia's form in bed, body slowly rising and falling, still asleep.

'Not on my watch!'

"Tavi."

Nothing.

"Pssst. Hey. Tavi."

Still nothing.

"Tavi. Wake up." She said louder this time, even going as far to nudge the sleeping mare with her magic.

At this point, Vinyl was getting irritated at the lack of response.

"TAVI WAKE UP."

The grey earth pony just had time to let out a yelp before she was flung at the wall by an abnormally strong display of magic from Vinyl.

"Wow! I didn't even know I could do that!" Said an excited Vinyl.

"Augh, Vinyl, WHAT. THE. HELL?" Shouted Octavia, pulling herself buck up onto the bed.

"Well, I tried being nice, but you still weren't getting up so-SWEET MOTHER OF CELESTIA!"

"What? What is it?" Came Octavia's irritated reply.

"Y-your eye, Tavi!" Said Vinyl, pointing a hoof at the other mare's face.

"What?" My eye?" Octavia trotted over to a chest of drawers, a mirror residing on top.

Sure enough, a look in the mirror revealed something was indeed up with her eye. Namely, it was red. Very red. Just the left one, though, her right eye was just peachy.

Octavia was less than impressed.

"Fantastic, Vinyl. I let you spend the night here and you repay me by breaking the blood vessels in my eye. For what reason did you feel it necessary for me to get better acquainted with my bedroom wall, hmmm?" She asked, getting up in Vinyl's face.

Vinyl shrunk under Octavia's creepy, mismatched gaze. It was an intense stare that she had gotten used to since meeting the cellist, but now, with her eye like that, it was just..wrong? No, not wrong, terrifying.

"W-well....uh...I was trying to wake you up...so I could ask you a question..."

"And what, pray tell, was so important about this question that it warranted launching me at my own house?" Octavia narrowed her eyes at the unicorn.

"I forget..." Was her meek reply.

"Hmm? Speak up."

"I said...I f-forgot..." Vinyl looked away, finding anything other than Octavia's face very interesting right now.

"Oh, how marvelous. How positively spectacular." Octavia turned away and trotted towards the bathroom. "You are a piece of work, Vinyl Scratch." She slammed the door behind her, leaving Vinyl alone in the room.

'Yeah...probably could've gone better...'

~

Lunch (not even Vinyl could call it breakfast, it was well past noon by now) was...awkward. Octavia was still furious (although, sightly less so, considering she hadn't kicked Vinyl out yet) and Vinyl was still nursing a hangover, head wound, and a slight (rather deserved) sense of guilt, which left her feeling less than talkative. Plus, she'd be lying if she said she didn't think Octavia now looked like some kind of super villain, and it kinda freaked her out.

Still, Tavi couldn't be that angry at her, she hadn't asked her to leave or anything. And had given her food. And painkillers.

Okay, so it's safe to say Vinyl was feeling like a bit of a dick right about now. Rightfully so, let's be honest. Right now, what she needed was an exit strategy that wouldn't make things any more awkward, somehow she didn't think 'I'm gonna go' would cut it this time. Luckily(?) her stewing was interrupted by a rapping at the door, which Octavia swiftly left to go an answer, leaving Vinyl alone at the table.

"Hey Tavi, how's-WAH!"

That'll be Lyra, then.

"Tavi, what happened?"Asked Lyra, concern practically dripping from her voice.

"Vinyl." Said Octavia, flatly.

"Oh." There was a pause. "Again?"

"HEY!" Shouted Vinyl. "What do you mean 'again'? I am not that bad, ms. punch-another-mare-until-I-break-my-legs!"

It probably sounded better in her head.

"Vinyl, not 24 hours ago you basically started a two-pony bar fight and lost. Two weeks ago you got detained for trying to beat up an awful, awful pony with a guitar." Lyra retorted.

"You shut your mouth!" Vinyl brought her hooves down on the table in outrage. "How can you say I go about things the wrong way? Like you're miss perfect!"

"Hmph. At least I show up everywhere on time." Lyra said with a slight feeling of superiority.

"Oh yeah, well at least I don't drive ponies out of their own houses!" Accused Vinyl.

"That was one t-"

"QUIET!" Roared Octavia. The other two mares complied.

"If you just came here to argue, you can both just leave."

Still silence.

"Better. Now, besides causing a fracas, was there any reason for you being here? Because I have a splitting headache and half a mind to just ask the both of you to leave anyway." She asked Lyra, with a (probably intentional) edge to her voice.

"W-well, two things I guess. One was that Ponyman from Below Class called and said he wanted to meet with us for drinks and to talk sometime tonight-"

"What! Why didn't he call me?" Interrupted Octavia.

"He said he did. 5 times. This morning." Lyra replied with a flat look.

"Well, if he had I would have heard...the...phone..."

Octavia had turned to look at the phone, only to find a burned out, melted wreck of plastic sat atop the windowsill in the kitchen, where the phone was supposed to be.

"Ahaheheeh....that maaaayyyy have been me." Said Vinyl, rubbing the back of her neck with a hoof and not making direct eye contact with the irate earth pony.

"Care to explain any further?" Octavia said with an oddly calm tone. And a twitchy eye.

"Well when we got back last night I was really hungry. I think I tried to order pizza, it's kinda a blur. Anyway, I tried to use your phone, but I think I kinda overcooked it a bit." Vinyl said, tapping the end of her horn.

"HOW DO YOU BURN SOMETHING ATTEMPTING TO PICK IT UP!?" Exploded Octavia.

"It wasn't my fault! I was drunk!" Came the unicorn's defense.

To that all Octavia could do was sit down and cradle her head in her hooves. She'd just about reached the maximum amount of stupidity she could deal with in one day.

"What time are we meeting Ponyman, Lyra?" Asked Octavia, slightly muffled.

"About 8, at the Hoof And Wing."

Octavia shuddered, she would have to thoroughly clean herself when she got back. Anytime spent in the Hoof And Wing was too long. Why he would want to meet there she had no idea.

"So be it. Now, if you wouldn't mind, I would quite like to be alone for a while."

"But what about-" Lyra started, but Octavia's glare told her that there wasn't another option.

"Oooookaaaaay then, see you later I guess." Lyra said over her shoulder "Coming, Scratch?"

"Yeah, one second." Said Vinyl, pre-occupied with Octavia's toaster "Damn thing is stuck." She said, poking a fork in to try and free the bread.

"VINYL." Octavia's tone signaled something bad WAS going to happen if Vinyl didn't leave immediately.

"Rodger, out of here!" Vinyl practically leapt over Lyra and was out the front door in seconds "Later, Termarenator!"

Lyra followed her out with a sigh, closing the door behind her. She turned around only to be met with Vinyl's face much too close for comfort.

"Waaaaiiit a second, you said there were TWO things you needed to talk about. What was the other one?"

"Well" started Lyra, pushing Vinyl back at the same time "I was going to ask why her house was all covered in newspapers."

Sure enough, out front were newspapers all strewn about in the breeze. A lot of newspapers.

"Boy, Tavi's gonna be pissed when she sees this." Observed Vinyl. "Yeah, I'm not gonna be the one to tell her. Besides, I gotta go fix this." She pointed up to her bandages. Or maybe even her whole face, it was hard to tell. "Later gator."

With that, Vinyl was gone.

Deciding it would probably be better for her health if she wasn't around when Octavia saw the state of her house, Lyra decided to go too, much less chance of injury that way.

~

Author's Note

CELEBRATING A YEAR OF NOT MUCH STORYTELLING!

Aaaaaand we're back. Sort of.

Man, I should keep a tally of how many times characters have gotten injured in this story.

Includes one or two obvious, ham-fisted references!

Prologue

The equipment cart was parked neatly away from the trail, sitting in a small grove. Despite the fact that it was now early afternoon, its occupants were fast asleep, save for one. She was perched on top of a large amplifier, silently studying a magazine. Equestria Music Weekly. She flipped the page to the section she was looking for, grinning as she scanned the page. The album reviews section, exactly what she was looking for.

~

Mudhinney - Superfluff Bigmane

Really now. Is this what the world has come to? This sorry excuse for 'music'? This is not music, this is a sorry collection of filthy, unintelligible garbage. This is just noise, no more, no less, and it pains me that this is what the current state of affairs in the songwriting world has to offer.

The invention of enchanted instruments should have heralded in a new golden era for music. Instruments could be played louder than ever, and therefore to larger crowds, spreading the gift of music to all. The refined melodies, reliable rhythm section, and all the rest for all to hear. Instead what we get is this. This 'album' abuses this wondrous new invention, using it to create horrid crunching, grinding effects over the instruments, leaving only a fuzzy mess behind where there should be sweet lyre tones, and driving punchy cello. It completely destroys the spirit of these finely crafted pieces of working art. The 'musicians' have defaced the names of their instruments in the name of whatever it was they were attempting to achieve with this project of theirs.

Each song is an abrasive, angsty, repulsive insult to the song writing establishment. The lyrics lack any poeticism or imagination, and I judging the quality of them were written hastily with little to no forethought. All the tracks are largely the same, hurried, erattic percussion guiding the sludgy mess of lyre and cello angrily, up until the last song, which descends into a boring, abrasive droney heap.

Frankly, I cannot think of a single reason why anypony should purchase this record. It is vile, and I would urge all of you reading to not even spare it a passing glance. It is the musical equivalent of shoving gravel into the ears. I shall not even acknowledge it with a single star, and as such it will remain unrated.

I hope you are all very pleased with yourselves, Ms. Lyra and Ms. Vinyl, and especially you Ms. Octavia. The rest of the musical establishment certainly aren't.

~

Octavia smirked to herself and let out a chuckle. This was both the reaction she wanted and expected from the musical establishment. They would never understand why music like theirs was being surpassed by, as they called it, "a sludgy mess" because they were all to stubborn to accept change. Yes, it was a recent change, but it was change none the less. She stood up and let out a sigh, they were going to have to work harder to annoy the 'classical' crowd, as they were now known, now that they knew what to expect.

Besides, this new style of music is sort of their own fault anyway.

But for now, she had to focus on waking the rest of the band up. They were on tour after all, and still had a schedule to keep to, lest they miss their next gig. So, she started nudging them, they started rolling over and complaining in response. Same as every other morning. Afternoon. Whatever.

Interlude: Sonic Foal Tour Diary, Day 25: Seaddle

Dissy made us all get up really early, again. I get we've got a schedule to keep to, but awake pre-sunrise is a resounding 'No' from me. I still don't see why she had to wake us all up anyway, it was her and Metro's turn to pull the cart, the rest of us could just have stayed asleep until it was our turn. Maybe she was mad she had to get up or something.

We got into Seaddle in time for lunch. We stayed inside most of the day, it was threatening to rain, but didn't in the end. I really need to find us a weather schedule or something. I found a neat little pawn shop and managed to score a vintage camera, quirky little thing, but it still works. Ressy and Dissy spent most of the day playing with their own film camera, a bunch of visual experiments or something. I got to say, some of the stuff they came up with looked kinda cool.

(Note to Ressy: I know you'll read this at some point, and I'm going to keep calling you Ressy, not to annoy you, but because it's just better than having to say Resonance every time I want to get your attention. I don't see what's so bad about it, Dissy seems pretty fine with it.)

(P.S. It is actually also to annoy you, but only a little bit.)

We met up with Pony Galore at the sound check, then went to get dinner, a banquet of hay fries all around. We jammed a bit on their bins. That was fun, we should try that sometime.

The show went well, the crowd were loving it, there was some great energy. I hope the rest of the Seaddle crowds are like this at our next shows. The set went well, every pony seemed to enjoy it. We did a quick two song encore at their insistence.

We noticed the crowd had left somepony behind as they were leaving, and said somepony was bleeding, so we took her backstage for help. Her friends apparently had the same idea and got to her at the same time we did. We put her down on the sofa and Dissy went to go find a first aid kit for her head, and I talked to her friends. Lyra and Vinyl were their names, and Octavia was the injured one. After she woke up and told us what happened, we all started talking. Octavia seemed really grateful, and they were all good for a laugh.

So by the end of the night, Metro had talked them into starting their own band. Vinyl seemed really, really into it, but we were all more than a bit drunk by that point. After that we all left, we even get to stay in an actual hotel this time! This is so much better than the cart, it really is. We're playing the Hay Bale tomorrow, and The Grand Stable the day after, then we're off to Fillydelphia after a break. Hectic.

~ No Wave