Vinyl meets Dragonforce
“Bored now…” The famous DJ-Pon3, or as she was known to nearly everypony who wasn’t in the stupid mainstream music companies, Vinyl Scratch, said to herself.
The white unicorn mare leaned back against her couch in her slightly fancy apartment in Manehattan, shutting off her stereo and sighing as she removed her headphones. She took off her lenses, rubbing her crimson eyes with her hooves, and then put the lenses back on. Shaking her electric blue mane about a little, she got up and trotted over to her CD collection. There had to be something she wanted to listen to.
Unfortunately, if there was, she didn’t own it.
“I’m bored of all of this…” Vinyl muttered, sighing and shaking her head. What did a pony that thrived on music do when her style of music bored her nearly to tears? Dubstep and techno was fine, but sometimes, a pony just NEEDED to get away.
Her broodings were interrupted by a rapid series of knocks on her door. From across the room, her horn glowed a bright blue, opening the door remotely. There stood the clumsy, yet endearingly lovable mailmare with the derped up eyes, Derpy Hooves. The gray pegasus bounced in, her blond hair bouncing up and down. She was, as always, in a good mood and, as always, so bubbly… hence her cutie mark, a bunch of bubbles.
“Mail for ya, Vinyl!” Derpy almost sang, reaching into her saddlebag and tossing a small package to the DJ. The confused pony caught it in her magic aura.
“I didn’t order anything…” Vinyl said to Derpy, who simply gave a ponyshrug, rearing back onto her hind legs and raising her front legs in a shrug. This proved to be a bad idea however, as the klutzy mailmare fell over backward.
“Help! I’ve fallen, and I can’t- oh, there we go!” Derpy chirped, being righted by the DJ’s telekinesis. The mailmare happily nuzzled Vinyl, accepted the obligatory muffin, and pranced out the door, closing it shut behind her. Vinyl placed the package on her coffee table, mentally noting it was small, square, and just the right size for a CD case. She trotted into her kitchen, looking around for a drink before something stopped her cold.
Wait.
Just the right size for a CD case…
A CD case…
She dashed back to the table, lifting the package. What mysteries could this simple small package hold? Ripping the paper open, she found, indeed, a small CD case and a note. Vinyl lifted the note up and read aloud.
‘Heard you were bored and decided to send this along…ENJOY! :)
BS’
She shook her head, the initials meaning nothing to her. Though Vinyl did wonder how the sender knew that she was bored…. Turning her attention to the CD case itself, she gave it a professional musician’s once-over. The background appeared to be a large vertically separating metal door with huge initials covering them. A giant D, stamped in and filled with lava apparently, just above a giant F in the same deal. The band name in the upper left corner caught her attention.
“Dragonforce? I’ve never heard of them… and that’s saying something.” Vinyl said to herself, then trotted over to her CD player and slotted in the CD. Putting her headphones back on, she walked back to her sofa, hopping up and settling down to listen.
The first track, 'Holding On' according to the back of the CD case, started off soft, with a slow buildup, but as soon as the guitar kicked in, Vinyl gasped. When the drummer started up, her lenses fell off in amazement. But the singer… the singer was in a league of his own. The first lyric in the song was an amazing scream going through four note changes, and ending in a high pitched howl that raised the fur on Vinyl’s entire body and turning her into something akin to a giant cotton ball.
Then everything else kicked in.
Guitars (She detected three of them, two lead, one bass.), keyboard, and drums slammed together in a cacophonous twister of raw sound that left her headbanging wildly to the song, even though she couldn’t match the drumbeats. It was alright, because then that glorious singer started up again… And the song continued like that for four minutes and fifty-six seconds.
Vinyl paused the CD and shook her head in wonder, sliding her lenses back on and smoothing down her fur. How had she not heard of this band before? She knew every band in Equestria, usually because she took them on tour with her and found venues for them to play, but this… this had managed to slip under her radar entirely! Deciding to think about it later, she skipped to the next track, totally unprepared for what was going to hit her.
'Fallen World' started mid tempo, with an opening guitar riff that sounded similar, but just different enough from the previous song that it didn’t sound rehashed… She assumed that it was just their style. She was oh so right.
Because then the fast part kicked in. Excuse me… the hyperspeed part kicked in.
Her lenses didn’t just fall off, they fell off and SHATTERED. Against the carpet! She couldn’t even start to process what was going on; the instruments were playing so fast. Vinyl’s jaw dropped and it stayed there for the whole song… all four minutes and nine seconds of it.
If she wasn't before, she was hooked now, and kept listening through ‘Cry Thunder’, a relative breath of fresh air from the insane ‘Fallen World’ and possibly one of the catchiest songs she’d ever heard at that point. Then there was ‘Give Me The Night’, which she kinda didn’t like… she could tell it was about drug abuse and since she’d never had a problem with it, but had friends that did, well… too many bad memories. ‘Wings of Liberty’ was odd, seeming to be a sort of ‘end’ to the fictional journey of the band but placed in the middle of the CD… She thought it’d be better placed at the end. Still, it was good, if a bit long. The song clocked in at seven minutes and eighteen seconds. But none of them could compare to the next one...
‘Seasons’… She absolutely loved. She loved how hopeful the song was in comparison to all the other ones. She loved the huge scream at the end. She loved the fade out at the end, almost as if the bad times were over and it was time to move on. And move on she did , though not really in the right direction.
‘Heart of the Storm’ seemed to depict the journey into the heart of danger, almost like a final boss fight in a video game. Vinyl shrugged. It was alright, but not one that stuck out enough to mention in a review… Then the song ‘Die By the Sword’ passed and knocked her on her flank.
Finally the CD finished off with a surprising ending track… an Acoustic version of 'Seasons', which she felt simply added to the song’s hopeful message… ‘Seasons’ really did seem to be saying, “Get up, brush yourself off and move on, it ain’t that bad. It’ll get better, trust us.” And Vinyl believed it.
Vinyl lifted her headphones off her head with her magic, and buried her muzzle into a pillow… and screamed. Long and loud.
“YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” A sound of pure joy and energy erupted from her throat, only barely escaping through the pillow. Once she was finished, she ejected the CD, placed it back in the case and sighed. Besides the awesome, there were still some unanswered questions. Who was this ‘BS’ pony? How did she know she was bored of her music? Did she really care? Either way, there was one thing she knew for sure, and one thing only.
“I’m gonna need a new pair of lenses…”
Meanwhile, in Canterlot, BlackStar the Banished sat back in his house, grinning his head off and rubbing his hooves together, his wings spread and his black fur standing on end in glee.
“ Excellent... it's all according to plan… soon, all of Equestria will know the brilliance of HEAVY BUCKIN’ METAL! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!” He laughed maniacally, then coughed, the epitome of a classic British klutz villain.
“Not that that’s a bad thing.” He said, grinning to the camera and reaching over, shutting the camera off and ending the story.