The Takeover

One month ago...

Khan

The final chord and the last word rings out and the crowd stomps and cheers. A shiver tingles up my entire back; there is no other feeling like a crowd of people singing along to one of your songs.

"Thank you all for coming out tonight!" The vocalist, Nova, yells to the crowd. The audience replies with another burst of yelling and applauding, chanting, "Stormborne, Stormborne, Stormborne!"

Nova looks at me in triumph. She might as well have had 'I told you so' written on her forehead. I'm definitely going to have to hear about this later tonight.

She looks back out to the crowd and asks, "Did we do good tonight?" The answer is quite clear by the hollering and chants of our band name. "If we came around here again, by power of voice, who would be here?" I'm quite sure the entire auditorium would be according to the even louder feedback from the crowd.

A beach ball flies up on stage and landsa few feet in front of me and rolls closer, I enthusiastically kick it back into the crowd where it continues its journey on the heads of the cheering congregation. I noticed that this auditorium is almost completely full. The entire floor section is packed and it looks like the nose-bleed seats are full as well.

"We've got one more for you tonight." Another burst of stomping and screaming emerges from the crowd. "This one is dedicated to you, the fans-" She's cut off by an unexpected short burst of hollering. "Because, without you..." She put her hoof on top of one of the floor monitors. "Our hobby wouldn't have become our career." She stops again for another round of applause, Stone performing a double kick snare loop three times.

"You know...." She walks slowly across the stage, taking in the crowd's massive size. "This our last concert of our Forged in Storms Tour." More screaming and yelling from our eccentric fans. "However, we have already been in the studio working on our next album!"

The crowd starts cheering. I pull a few guitar pics from my hoodie pocket and throw them into the crowd one by one, making sure not throw to the same place twice.

The bass kicks in over the auditorium, drowning the building in a low rumble. The bass guitarist, Cayne, staring out into the jumping audience and nodding his head with approval. The lead guitarist, Griel, starts the intro, and I follow in with an open chord on the first three strings. The drummer, Stone, synchronizing his kick drum with my guitar and his high hat with the Griel's. When the intro fades out into a clean sound where I played an open D chord and Griel plays a slow and progressive run, Cayne's bass-line could be heard clearly over it.

"Do you guys wanna hear one of the new songs?" Nova asks with a seductive look on her face. The cheering becoming almost even with auditorium PA.

As the bass-line comes to a close, I click a pedal on the floor in front of me, turning on the distortion. I let out a 2 tap hoofmute before the verse as Nova starts the first verse.

As the verse ends, all of our instruments go silent for a brief second, then we kick out the silence with a blast from all of our instruments. A mosh pit begins to form in the middle of the audience. The strobe lights going nuts along with the red, electric blue, and purple stage lights washing the crowd in an electric glow; the auditorium looks like a fully colored flip book. The chorus begins with a power chord from me and the lead riffs from Griel, Cayne's bass riff being very similar to my rhythm riff. Nova starts hovering in the air, singing her addition to the noise of combined instruments and crowd.

When the chorus comes to a close, the guitar solo begins. Several ponies are crowd surfing and now two mosh pits in full swing. The heat from the pyrotechnics behind me making me sweat even more, the blue flame casting shadows among the crowd, making it seem as if ghosts are joining in on the activities.

Soaking up the energy of the crowd like a sponge, before I could blink the song is over. Nova yells to the crowd, "Thank you Manehatten! Good night!" The show is over and the stage lights turn off and the auditorium lights come on so the crowd could see their way to the exits. Me and the rest of the band make our own exit off the stage, passing by the crew that will be packing our equipment up for us.

We did a good show tonight. But the night isn't quite over for us yet. We still have a meet 'n' greet in the lobby.

<--------o------O------o-------->

Backstage in the lounge, after the meet 'n' greet.

"We smashed that stage, bro!" Cayne exclaims, enthusiastically gulping down a shot of whiskey.

"Nova you were over the top tonight." Stone comments, crashing down on the leather couch behind him.

"Does a second go by that I'm not over the top?" Nova replied, matter-of-factly.

"Not that I know of," he said lazily.

Nova smiled at Stone, "Didn't think so."

Nova is truly a one of a kind pony. She really is a sight to be held and personality to match. With a solid black mane with the little strands of vibrant pink flowing through it and her almost solid white coat made her look like the perfect blend of an angel and a demon. We dated at one point, but like almost all high school relationships, it didn't last. Then she turned lesbian and yes, I do get made fun of for that.

Stone is the kind that could make anyone laugh by putting down on others in a joking way. He is a dark gray and has a disheveled mess of blue and auburn for a mane.

Griel was the quiet and sarcastic type but not in a bad way. He was more of a speak when spoken to kind of pony. He had an electric blue and white mane that stood out from his dark blue coat.

Cayne is the pony who could make even the saddest pony laugh by putting himself down and coming up with fake scenario's about things that have happened to him. He is a midnight purple colored pony with a solid vibrant green mane. Truthfully, we all look pretty exotic.

I am a dark gray coated pony with a deep blue mane and my personality is more or less a mix of all of their personalities, almost like facets of me.

We are still a young band technically with all original members except for one: The original drummer.

Cas was a good friend of mine and we had known since grade school. He always made beats on the desks in school and got lunch detention several times for disturbing class. I met Cayne and Griel at Ponyville High School. Nova and I, well...we kinda just ran into each other.

After the musical school were we had met our new drummer, Stone, we dropped out of the school and we mostly played at bars and small local music festivals but that was about it. Until our last album, we were hardly nothing. We had two songs from the previous album make it to the top 10 on the charts.

Cas went off the deep end and went missing. His mom had died about a week before he went A.W.O.L. Then, our manager got a report from the Ponyville P.D. saying he had overdosed on meth in a hotel room. When we found out he was doing drugs, we kicked him out. We couldn't have that in our band and as far as I know, he is still in a rehab facility.

"Hey Khan," Nova calls from over at the soft fabric couch she is sitting on.

"Yeah?" I reply.

"What'd I tell ya?" she asks with largest smirk manageable.

"I knew you were going to ask that."

"And?"

"And...you were right." Geez I'm going to hear about this for a while. Nova was right. I hear a disappointed "damn" escape Cayne's muzzle and Stone busts out laughing as Cayne shoves a small bag across the table, the bag jingling all the way over.

Griel chuckled and says, "Don't feel bad, Cayne. I was on your side, too. I just wasn't dumb enough to bet on it."

Cayne scowls.

"What are you two betting on over there, huh?" I asked.

Before I get an answer, the door sings open. The doorway beholds our manager, Smoky

"Hello everypony!" He yells enthusiastically. "How is my favorite band on the planet doing tonight?"

Griel replies sarcastically, "Well it is certainly a lot better now that you're here! That means I get paid!"

With a light chuckle, Smokey replies, "Yeah, yeah". He pulls out five bags that were a lot fatter than usual. "You may be wondering why I am in such a good mood tonight." Cayne's hoof shot up in the air like he was in a classroom. "And no, it is not because my BAC is more than ten percent. His hoof floats back down like a deflating balloon.

That's when Smokey explodes in a rush of excitement. "You guys, for the first time, sold out tonight."

The crew makes the amazement known. "How large was the crowd?" I ask, barely containing my enthusiasm.

"There was 7,500 available seats" Smokey replies smoothly.

I gave a little whistle. "That's awesome."

Smokey starts tossing the the hefty little bags of coin toward us one by one, me having to fly up to catch mine. I guess another detail about the band I had left out previously is that Nova and I are the only ones who are not unicorns; Nova and I are pegasi. Some ponies wonder how I play the guitar whilst not having a horn to use magic(I call it cheating, but obviously I'm joking). I basically have trained my left wing to make the chords. I also have, for my strumming hoof, a special device that holds the pick for me. I just put it on and strum away.

We finish off the night with a toast. Stone starts pouring shot glasses full of whiskey, one for each of us except Nova. She can't stand alcohol but under what reason, she has never told me. Stone stands up and says, "Tonight, we have thrown a milestone at fate and had our very first sold out show." She hovered up her glass, and I quickly picked up mine. "And on top of that," she continued. "This was the last show of our tour."

Nova stands up and raises her little apple juice box and says, "I'll drink to that."

After giving her softhearted smile, we all raise our glasses and I say, "Here's to us."