Hooves of Fire

Twilight Sparkle walked through the streets of Ponyville on a Thursday afternoon twelve days after the royal wedding of her brother and Princess Cadence. Using her unicorn powers to lift a scroll, she looked at her schedule.

"Let's see... I just finished helping Fluttershy with her animals, so that's done."

She lifted a pen and made a check mark on the paper.

"Now," she began to herself, "I agreed to go to the salon with Rarity, but that's not for another hour. And I don't have anything else of immediate urgency to do, so my time is basically free!"

Twilight's time being completely free was a very rare thing to occur. Because of this, she decided she would take the time to do something of her own choice.

She continued to the local record store, "Vinyl's Picks." As she entered the building, she saw a white unicorn with a blue mane sorting albums behind the front desk. The nametag she wore read "Vinyl Scratch."

"Welcome to Vinyl's Picks," said the unicorn. "How may I help you?"

"Well," began Twilight, "I have an hour of free time, so I'm just going to browse your newest records."

"Sure!" said Vinyl. She began pulling out a poster of "Stevie Wonderbolt," a blind singer who was beginning his popularity.

"Hey," said Twilight, "you're that DJ from the fashion show two years ago, aren't you?"

"The one and only!" laughed Vinyl. "I also was at the royal wedding in Canterlot twelve days ago. Most people don't recognize me as DJ Pon3 without my sunglasses, though."

"Oh."

Twilight looked through the many isles of records. She walked past the classical, jazz, blues, etc. Finally, she came upon the isle in the back marked "New Stuff."

Her eyes darted from one side of the shelf to another. There were many selections there: Eric Clopton, the Gratefoal Dead, Celestian Airplane, Coltsby, Stalls & Nash.

A lot of this music is from that new "sound," she thought. What she meant by that was that rock and roll had not exactly become mainstream, and was a fairly new style of music.

As Twilight was looking, someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Excuse me."

Twilight looked and saw it was Vinyl. She was carrying a box with her magic.

"Oh! I'm sorry. Am I in the way? I'll move."

Twilight moved out of the way and Vinyl set the box down. Twilight looked inside and saw it was filled with more records.

"A shipment just came in today of a new album," Vinyl said as she started putting the albums on the shelf in between the G's and the I's.

"Wow," said Twilight. As Vinyl stacked one of the albums, Twilight looked at the cover.

It showed four stallions, all in grayscale, with identical haircuts and wearing identical black turtlenecks. One of them was an earth pony, one of them was a pegasus and the other two were unicorns. The title read A Hard Day's Flight.

"Excuse me," asked Twilight, "what is this?"

"That?" said Vinyl. "Oh, that's just the new album from the Hooves of Fire."

"Hooves of... wha?"

"They're a new band. They're all up in that new sound, y'know?"

"I see. Can you play me a sample of their older stuff?"

"Sorry, no can do. They had two albums before this, but they got sold out almost immediately."

Twilight was shocked by how quickly the albums had sold. "Wow, they must be really good!"

"Oh trust me, they are. Why else would they have become so popular?"

"I'm actually considering buying one of their albums right now. Should I?"

"Yes. But do it soon, because if I know from their previous albums, these things sell out more quickly than you could say..."

"AAAAAAA!"

Twilight looked behind her to see Lyra Heartstrings screaming outside the window. "It's the new Hooves of Fire album! AAAAAAAAA!" Lyra then ran away, most likely to get Bon Bon.

"I see what you mean," laughed Twilight, picking up one of the copies of the album with her magic. She carried it to the front desk. "How much?"

"Fifty bits."

Twilight pulled out the money, asking "That's priced an awful lot for one album, don't you think?"

"For a normal album, maybe," said Vinyl. "But these are... well, you'll see in about five, four, three, two, one..."

At that moment, around twenty female ponies ran in to the store. Twilight recognized a few of them as Lyra, Bon Bon and Derpy Hooves.

"You have the new Hooves of Fire album?"

"What's it called?"

"It's called A Hard Day's Flight I think!"

"Wow! That is such a cool name!"

"Screw the name, they're sexy!"

"I think Roger's the sexiest!"

"No, it's Spark!"

"Are you kidding me? It's obviously Pierce."

"You must be thinking of Sterling!"

"Can we buy the album?"

"Yeah! Can we?"

"How much does it cost?"

Twilight ducked under the crowd and slowly made her way to the door, but just then, another fifty ponies ran in, and one of them noticed her.

"Ohmigod! You have the new Hooves of Fire album!"

"Give it to me!"

"No, I want it!"

As the ponies fought over A Hard Day's Flight, Vinyl yelled to Twilight, "Save yourself!"

Twilight gripped the album with her magic and galloped out the door as fast as her hooves could carry her. As she looked back, she saw more ponies run in, most of whom were of the female gender. She thought to herself, Now I know what Vinyl meant. All I have to say is, this better not have been a waste of my money, because it took a heck of a lot of effort to get this.

She ran into her library and slammed the door shut behind her, thankful that the mob was gone. As she walked up the stairs to get to her room, her assistant Spike was standing on a ladder stacking books onto the shelves, but he fell off the ladder when he saw Twilight.

"Twilight!" yelled Spike. "What happened?"

Twilight set the album down on the desk. "What do you mean, Spike?"

"Well, look at you!"

Spike pushed a mirror up to Twilight. She looked in it and saw that she was covered with dirt and dust.

"Oh, yeah," said Twilight. "That. There was a big mob at Vinyl's record store."

"You went to the record store?" exclaimed Spike, surprised.

"Well, yes. I didn't have anything else on my list, so I went over and bought the newest Hooves of Fire album. Turns out that numerous other ponies, specifically those of the female gender, also wanted to buy this album."

"Hooves of Fire, eh? Never heard of them."

"Yeah, me neither, until today. Apparently they're a newish band. They are experimenting in this new sound that many ponies refer to as 'rock and roll'."

"Rock and roll?"

"I don't know, I haven't heard much of it. I'm still hoping this album wasn't a waste of money-- it cost fifty bits, you see."

"Ah. Well, there's only one way to find out!"

Spike picked up the album and headed over to the record player, but as he was about to take the album out of its case, a rainbow came in through an open window and he was tackled to the ground. The album was quickly swiped away from him and Rainbow Dash flew away with it towards the window.

"Mine!"