Evil Empire

This work of fiction was created by a person of multiple religious faiths and beliefs. What the hell am I doing?

“Twelve-thousand dollars?”

Agonized words of disbelief echoed throughout the store, dramatically reflecting from the room's every wall in a great and powerful manner.

Vinyl Scratch helped herself to a short, internal chuckle in response, since she had pretty much seen it coming. She knew Trixie hadn't been the first customer to lose her faith to that particular prize tag. She could also tell – with certainty, really – this wouldn't mark the last time she heard these words. After all, they were talking about a custom made, special painted, 24-thread, Clop Zeppelin signature doubleneck. Being a hand-manufactured import only increased the prize even further.

“You'll pay for this, Rainbow Dash!” Trixie exclaimed, while reaching out towards a certain inanimate object, using her index finger. Or plainly speaking, she pointed at the exit door. The girl she tried to address had just disappeared through the very same door with her newest purchase, leaving Trixie behind like some boasting, overconfident moron.

Of course, no-one would ever dare call her that.

To make matters even more hilarious, one of the girls – Pinkie Pie, as Vinyl identified her – poked her head in through the doorframe one more time, cheerfully grinning at them.

“No, silly,” she chanted. “If you want it, you have to pay for it.”

Vinyl briefly turned away from her powerful customer to let out a fairly delighted grin, which had been building up ever since. The entire feud that had just gone down before her eyes had been largely unnecessary, and thus idiotic enough for her to almost lose it. After all, when Rainbow Dash had brought in her 'broken' guitar earlier, Vinyl could have told her right then, how to easily fix it. Even if done by a professional, the whole thing would have been a 50 bucks job at max.

Of course, that wouldn't be even half the cash you could get for selling a brand new guitar. Running a business was simple, keeping it running usually turns out the tough part. Judging from the way how things had unfolded, Vinyl sure didn't regret her decision.

Any job could get monotonous over time, even if it revolved around her favorite interest. And even if it took place in her favorite city, which might have been the only one she ever lived in...but still. On long workdays like these, a little distraction always came in handy and Vinyl would warmly welcome it. The only factor ruining the equation was Trixie, whom she – admittedly – did feel somewhat sorry for.

The silver-haired girl hadn't moved an inch. She stood in the exact same spot as five minutes ago, the very same look of disbelief on her face. Maybe time had frozen for her, or maybe, she was just helplessly confused.

Vinyl didn't really mind either way. Her rational beliefs had awfully been messed with a few weeks back, already. Back then, a few random girls from her grade had randomly and with random intentions decided to crash the fall formal party she had organized. For reasons Vinyl could never quite explain to herself, those girls had promptly produced a number of rainbow-colored(!) lasers. Their visual effects had turned out way more awesome than hers, even though none of them owned any professional equipment at the time.

She had even gone as far as to call some preacher to consort about these apparitions. However, after she had denied his question, whether any depictions of the virgin Mary or any other saint had appeared that night, he became gradually uninterested. As a good christian, he believed anything involving demons and rainbows to be some sort of satanic-homosexual propaganda. When Vinyl explained, how the rainbows and demons were actually fighting each other, he only laughed at her, and hung up.

Needless to say, that hadn't been entirely helpful. As a matter of fact, the same confusion she had felt that day, Trixie appeared to be experiencing right now. Speaking of which, maybe it was time someone pulled her mind out of the gutters.

“She has a point, you know,” Vinyl mumbled, trying not to sound overly amused. Trixie's eyes subsequently rose up towards her, the magician's bewilderment still clearly visible.

“Excuse me?" she asked, somewhat disturbed.

“Well, you do have to pay for it. And if you can't, I'd suggest you look around for something else. Just saying...we've got lots of things less expensive around here.”

“The great and powerful Trixie requires an equally great and powerful instrument to match her astonishing talents and personality.”

Invisibly, behind her pair of purple shades, Vinyl rolled her eyes. Did that obnoxious geek honestly consider herself the next Jimmy Haydrix or something? Either way, time for a sarcastic response.

“The great and powerful Trixie probably shouldn't always judge a book by its cover.” Vinyl tried to put as much emphasis as possible into her customers self-proclaimed title, only to realize the fault in her action soon after. Judging from Trixie's twitching eyelid, that had obviously been the wrong answer.

“And what would you rather suggest, Scratch?” Trixie returned, clearly angered by now.

With a low sigh, Vinyl went around the counter, thereby snatching the doubleneck guitar from her hands. “Why don't you come over here for a second?”

Mounting the guitar back onto its rightful place on the wall, she continued: “From what you've been blasting out back there, I'd guess you're more the heavy metal kind of person. I mean, you've really been pulling a thing or two on that Flying V. But the doubleneck requires some completely different style...and I don't think there's a left handed version.”

"Wait...left-handed?” Trixie critically raised an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah. That guitar you been shredding on was left-handed. I guess you are, too...And the doubleneck might look awesome, but simply wouldn't be available for you.”

In a moment of awkward silence, Trixie blinked helplessly. “Oh,” she said. “Uh...you seem to know quite a bit about music.”

“You could say that. Practically, I'm all about it. Always have.”

“Trixie wonders, whether you as an expert would care to help manage her gig. Or even join it in some way...”

Vinyl raised a hand, telling her to stop. “Thanks,” she answered. “But I'm tryna stay out of this whole CHS musical competition thing.”

“You do?” After shifting from anger to curiosity, Trixie's expression seemed more confused than anything, now. “But why?”

And what a question that was. One, which Vinyl had luckily been preparing for ever since 9th grade. Would have been a shame if no-one had ever cared about her being heard. “I just...disagree with it,” she thus replied, suddenly rather unassured. “On a moral level, you see.”

Trixie didn't. At least not as far as Vinyl could tell.

She therefore continued: “It's our educational system in a nutshell. All of us have some sort of special talent, for whatever reason, but still. I for once make a pretty good DJ, you're good with your magic tricks and all...others might just be good at anything else: Sports, Music, Literature, even something dumb like...I don't know...writing down some fictional characters' dialogue for no reason.”

She paused, taking a deep breath for the revelation about to come: “And then, there's school, just like: Fuck it, you're all just gonna play rock songs, now. We don't care who you are as long as you simply blend in with the crowd. Heck, even TV cartoons teach better lessons than that.”

Throughout the dialogue, Trixie's expressions remained rather stable. However, from tapping her index finger against her waist, it was easy to see her getting at least somewhat nervous by now.

“Maybe...maybe Trixie might indeed settle for that other guitar, after all.” Her voice seemed to regain a lot of confidence, while adding: “And she did use some of her special talent for performance enhancing. That great and powerful guitar playing from earlier was something special, no doubt about it.”

“Your special talent, as in...magical talent?” Vinyl's sarcasm had soon return right along with her opposite's confident attitude. “In what way did you do that?”

Trixie then proceeded to rise back up to her full imaginative height, a smirk starting to dwell on her face. “Thanks to her magnificent use of magical elements, the great and powerful Trixie doesn't even require the assistance of an amp.” She pointed at the Flying V. “Or did you observe her plugging that thing into anything before starting to shred?”

Vinyl's eyes widened alongside Trixie's grin. At this point, only two questions roamed inside the head of Canterlot High's infamous disc jockey.

How the hell did she do that? Also, why does she refer to herself in third person...?

Vinyl rubbed her forehead, as another thought came to mind. She had heard about these cases of schizophrenia before. Matter of fact, there had been a report about what to do about them on the History Channel, lately.

Without further hesitation, Vinyl quickly produced a small, plastic package from one of her pockets, holding it out to Trixie. The magician seemed taken aback by it, or mistrustful, at best.

“...and what is Trixie supposed to accomplish with that? Make it disappear?”

“Eat up.” Vinyl tried making herself as clear as possible. “Seriously, Trixie. Eat some peanut butter crackers. You're not yourself when you're hungry.”

Trixie doubtingly narrowed her eyes, looking at the package. Eventually, she still took it, just before another short period of consideration followed. After that, she finally produced a cracker from it, turned it in her hand a few more times, then took a bite.

“Better?” Vinyl asked.

“Better,” Trixie replied.

“I feel so relieved,” she added. “This might just be what I'm meant to be...where I'm meant to go in life.”

“Uh...cool. Maybe we could all just calm the hell down now, for a change.” That reaction was not what Vinyl had anticipated. Needless to say, she felt pretty disturbed from it. “So...you want the Flying V, or what?”

“Meh, not really,” Trixie said, dismissing her question with a short waving. “Honestly, I don't even like playing the guitar that much.”

She raised an eyebrow, moving two steps to the right. Suddenly, she stopped dead in her tracks, again. “I...I can see clearly now,” Trixie stuttered. “I can see, what you mean. The system does try to force us all into submission. I see...it's all so obvious...how...beautiful.”

Vinyl proceeded to take a few steps back towards the counter. This was getting way too weird for her to comprehend. And again, it certainly wasn't what she had expected. As usual when nervous, she grabbed something – an empty coke bottle in this case – and started turning it in her hands anxiously.

Meanwhile, Trixie continued her monologue, as both eyes randomly and energetically shifted through the room. “We have to ditch this corrupted system. For corrupted it is, big time. And it's missing something...essential. We're all missing a little peace, and justice, and...fraternity. Without all these, everything's just...”

Right then, their eyes suddenly met. Vinyl tore hers wide open in shock, in response to what happened. She felt something heavy being lifted off her chest, something extremely unpleasant. Something, whose presence she hadn't even noticed up until now. In this very moment, however, it was gone. Gone for good, that was. Judging from Trixie stopping dead in her tracks, she probably felt the same way.

“It's...it's just...” Trixie stuttered. “Everything is...”

“...fucked...up.”

Vinyl finished the sentence in a voice barely above a whisper, yet it still brought an incredibly grateful smile on Trixie's face. Matter of fact, tears of joy even started forming in her eyes, as she nodded in agreement.

“You see it now?” she whispered back, almost inaudible. “What do you think?”

“I guess, maybe, you're right,” Vinyl answered. She caught another glimpse of the label on her bottle: Fizzy Apple Cider. With a smug, she dropped it into a nearby trash bin.

Hesitant, almost timidly actually, she looked back up towards the blue-tanned girl in front of her.

“Vinyl Scratch?” Trixie asked in a most genuine tone.

“Uh-huh?”

“I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

A moment passed, during which neither of them said a word, since it seemed there was nothing more to add. Had they been characters in a movie, this sentence would have been a perfect cliffhanger, making way for the next scene.

Of course, that wasn't the case.

With a shrug, Vinyl grabbed another bottle of cider from behind the counter, and took a sip.

“We'll see,” she said.