Chapters Ponies keep asking me if I know Vinyl Scratch. What could I say? The one pony that was the bane of my existence and the reason I am tied to a pole with a gun in my mouth. She stood there with a sly smile on her face.
"This is it babe, the moment we've been waiting for. Aren't you excited? Do you have any special requests or words to mark this special occasion?"
"uuu... eeee... ugh... fff..ss"
When a gun is between your muzzle you speak only in vowels.
"Wait, what was that?" Vinyl removed the gun with her magic.
"I can't think of anything," I mumbled angrily
What was it about tasting metal of a gun helped me forget Vinyl's massive Bass Cannons, set in the many buildings across Manehatten, and made me remember she used that gun for more than just shooting? She trotted over to window in a sort of a sexy way, swaying her rump as much as she could. She was teasing me of course, because she knew I hated it when she did that. Her jokes had a way of crawling under my skin and stabbing me in the gut; pissing me off mostly.
She turned around to look at me and said in syrupy voice, "Things are getting exhilarating." Then she started jumping around the room with this big grin on her face. How could this pony be so evil, but look so innocent, like a young filly at Hearth’s Warming Eve?
We both had front seats to see her Concert of Mass Distortion. The Bass Committee of Project Mayhem had wired together 13 different Bass Cannons at the bottom of the most important buildings in Manehatten. With one single placement of a needle to a record, a sound wave will be sent to each Bass Cannon in the city, sending the buildings to the moon and leaving craters where Manehattan’s greatest features used to be. And the only reason I knew was because Vinyl knew it too.
Vinyl tried to stop sneaking looks at her watch, but did one more time just for good measure. There was a sickeningly-pleased tone in her voice as she spoke, "Why don’t you stop resisting this and enjoy what we have accomplished? The beginning of the end is in 2 minutes."
What had brought me to this point in my life? The underground club, Bass Cannons, gun in my muzzle. The whole thing was actually about a pony named Lyra Heartstrings.
Shoved into a hug by a tan coated and blue-pink haired pony. She was an earth pony, but had one awkward feature on her, Bitch Wings. I was in a self help group for mare and colts that had Avarian Cancer. This disease was caused by an overproduction of pegasus cells in Earth Ponies. The wings had no bone structure, but more like globs with feathers on them. Every pony in this group had some form of bitch wings, but Bon Bon's were the biggest.
So as she stood there crying in her embrace she said, " We are still earth ponies."
She had to have surgery at the end of each month, unlike other ponies, because she had developed a more serious case of it. The amount of fluid in her wings would increase so much that it would make it impossible for her to even move. For Bon Bon, the surgeries were, at first, nothing to her but a monthly routine that kept her living a normal life, but there was a pain developing in the wings that steadily grew with each surgery. She had told her doctors of the pain, but there wasn't an elixir, potion, or magic that could get rid of it. It had gotten so bad that she felt she'd rather be dead than suffer from it.
Pulling away from me she looked at me with those tear stained eyes, coughing and sniffing a bit from her excessive crying she says, "Okay, you cry now."
Wait, I got a little ahead of myself. Let me start at the beginning.
For over 6 months I couldn't sleep. It had been the most unyielding case of insomnia I have ever had. My body had grown weak from so many nights of sleeplessness. As I stood there in my office copy room, watching my cup of green tea moving with the rails of the printing machine that was being run by a light blue coat, and dark blue mane earth pony, I felt as though I could collapse from exhaustion. But no matter how badly I wanted to, my body refused. The world around felt so far away, nothing was real: everything was a copy, of a copy, of a copy.
Lost in my own thoughts and blank stare on my face the earth pony stood up shook me a bit and said uneasily, "Everything all right?"
He had woken me, not from sleep, but from a daze that I could have been stuck in for an eternity. "Oh ye...ah. I'm fine, just fine," I lied. I grabbed the finished copies of my reports and trotted out of the room.
I have been having a lot of these out of body experiences lately. The insomnia had this affect me.
I hated my job, but it was the only job that I was qualified to do. As I sat at my desk, staring into the trash can at all the tea cups and many salad bowls, I started think about when I started to stoop so low into buying this cheap disgusting food. The lettuce wasn't even crisp, the salad smelled and tasted like hooves, and the tea was just plain disgusting, but is was the only thing I could get when you’re constantly on the road.
My boss came up to me and sat on my desk while shifting through his papers. He was a pudgy looking pegasus with tan coat and black mane. His cutie mark was a filing cabinet. What a pathetic talent to have.
With a slight pep in his voice he said, "I need you go to out of town this week. There are a few bands playing around Equestria and I need their copies of their music before the end of this month."
In a bored voice I said, "So you want me to stop filing the downloading permission forms and push them off to a later date?" I had been at this company for so long I knew exactly what he wanted before he asked.
"Yes, exactly, also make these your primary uploads. The others can wait until we have these in the system." He sounded like he was in a good mood today, must have gotten his 2 bit blow job. "Here are your train tickets, and call me if you have problems with your recordings." He gave me slight smile and trotted off.
That guy makes me sick to my stomach.
I grabbed my saddle bags placed them on my back side and trotted out of the office to the train station.
I would like to thank my good friend ToixStory for editing my story and do check out is story Freeze Frame guys. All original story and characters.
I roamed around my apartment, staring at my collection of classical music-related objects. It had become an obsession and a need to have everything and anything to do with the genre. On the wall hung pictures of famous composers; my plates had neat little designs of violins, cellos, and other instruments on them. The collection grew with every new musician’s catalog that came in the mail at the end of each month. Whenever I saw something clever, like maybe a table in the shape of a cello, I had to have it.
Some would relate this obsession to my cutie mark, a light purple g-clef, though the truth is I got my mark by just trying to play every instrument, and finally hitting upon the cello. While trying to play the others had left me with hurt ears and a bunch of angry neighbors, the cello just came naturally. Its supple wooden curves and long ebony neck drew me into it like none other. I practiced it until my arm grew stiff from holding the bowstring, and eventually found that I was good. Real good. But then came the rising popularity of “electronic music,” and suddenly my talent had an expiration date.
To keep myself from taking an axe to the many producers and musicians, not that I would ever call them that, I had to settle with turning my apartment into a shrine to classical music. It pleased me, to an extent, and really that's all that mattered. But to be able to be able to pay for all of it, I had to have a job.
I worked for a free music downloading company that sent its minions to many parts of Equestria to record the musicians live shows. I, regretfully, agreed to be one these ponies.
But more on that later. "No, you cannot die from insomnia," the red maned, orange coated doctor told me.
I had been waiting in his office for over an hour just to hear those words. The room was full of young fillies playing and screaming. Now, normally I am a well mannered and low tempered pony, but with lack of sleep I felt like I could yell so many obscenities at them that I would have made a sailor look like a gentlecolt.
"But I feel almost nothing now...I could already be dead," I said tearfully,"Isn't there something you could do or give me?" I was practically shaking in my seat and stuttering from the anxiety.
He gave me a look of indifference and said,"No, you need natural, healthy sleep. Get some exercise and drink herbal tea." He got up and began to walk down the hallway.
It took every ounce in my being to not buck this douche in the teeth. Restraining the anger in my voice, badly, I said, "Come on, I’m in pain here," as I followed after him.
He turned around and said,"You wanna know pain? Go down to First Church of Celestia and see the ponies with Avarian Cancer. That's pain."
Bewildered by this statement, I shrugged and trotted out the room.
That night I sat in the meeting room of the First Church of Celestia staring at the other ponies in the room, each of them wearing a name tag. They all had pained looks on them while they listen to one of the colts talk about his daily struggles.
"I...I can't even go into public without somebody saying something nasty about my appearance," he said trying not cry."I even try to take them as jokes, bu..."He started crying.” It hurts so much sometimes that no matter what I do it just gets under my skin." He put his head between his hooves and cried some more.
An older-looking mare stood up, hugged the colt, and then looked at everyone with a touch of empathy and said,"Sharing a personal event in your life takes courage, and with that gives us all the courage to reflect on our own pain. Everyone please thank Rusty for sharing his story."
"Thank you, Rusty," we all said in a droned unison
"Now I would like everyone to pair with somepony and really let yourselves go. You'll feel so much better after you do." She gave a caring smile to everypony.
With that said, everypony got up and chose their partner, until it was only me and Bon Bon left in our seats. She got up and started to walk towards me. Her wide tearful eyes, slow, carefully placed steps, and her massive bitch wings made it almost impossible to move. I got up to meet her halfway, if only to help not strain herself too much.
Being a somewhat strong earth pony, she picked me up and pulled me into an hug before she started crying. She had been an Equestrian sweets-eating champion; it had taken her no effort to gobble down cakes faster than the Wonderbolts could fly. The only mare she says that came close to beating her was a pink pony who had seemed to be on crack 24/7.
"... I had special potions made that would help me digest faster,” she sobbed. “C- Come to find out they were meant for dragons! I could digest diamonds, for Lunasake.” She shuddered. “They disqualified me from the contest and all my friends and family looked down upon me with shame; they won't talk to me anymore and I lost all my bits on the bet I made on the competition." She cried even louder after this and buried her head into my shoulder.
Ponies with this kind of honesty make me sweat nervously.
After what seemed like an hour, she pulled away and looked at my name tag. Sniffing some more she said," Go on...uh, Minty,” he sniffed. “You can cry, too."
She started to pull me in and I resisted at first, but then something took control of me. It was like being pulled through the black gates of Tartarus. Utterly and completely silent abyss. I let her pull me in and I just let loose. All my frustrations and anger came out in tears on Bon Bon’s chest.
When I had finally released all my emotions into one cry and looked at Bon Bon's chest, there was a perfect wet outline of my face in her coat.
"See, don't you feel better now?" she said with a sympathetic smile.
All my life I had ponies smile at me, but they were all fake. Until today, when I meet Bon Bon; that smile warmed my insides and started a slow release of the demons I had.
That night, I passed out the instant I got into bed.
Fillies don’t sleep this good.
The Pony with the Mint Green Coat
The help groups became my new addiction. There was no denying it and I wasn’t going to. They were the only cure to my insomnia. I stared at church notice board at the different group meetings and their times. I couldn't resist the temptation and joy that they brought me with every visit. My thoughts would always linger though with the idea that maybe I had no right to be there. I had no illnesses or diseases of any kind. My health is what each of these ponies craved, and yet their crying and compassion is what I craved. I felt ashamed of myself, but then I soon realized that I also helped them as much as they helped me. I gave them shoulder to cry on and a kind face willing to listen to them. When I said nothing everypony would assume the worse and they would cry harder for me.
A disease known as Discord Cell Anemia is a rare Inherited Disease. Highly painful, random changes occur in a ponies system. Your blood could turn into chocolate, hair changes to cotton candy, basically anything that causes chaos in a ponies system,The condition is incredibly rare. The worst part about it is there is no cure and most ponies don't live past the age of 40.
I was at at, Return to Harmony, a help group for ponies with this disease that meets every Friday night at the church chapel. The meeting consists of mainly meditation and one on one talks with the other ponies. I preferred the one on one interaction, but the meditation would always send me on some Daring Do adventure. I read Daring Do books as a filly. She could go on adventures that I could only fantasize about. Being raised by rich, uptight parents they never approved of doing anything fun.
The group leader was standing against a podium in the front of the chapel with her eyes on all of us as she began.
"Now everypony close your eyes and begin concentrating on your innermost desires. That door you keep locked from the outside world. It's only you in there, so you are safe from any judgement or ridicule."
I started imagining the beginning of my journey through the jungle as I headed to the Azflank temple to explore its inner most depths. As I entered the temple, I looked around at the golden walls. I continued to explore the long passageways I could still hear the leader's voice echo through the tunnel.
"You continue to do whatever you please in your paradise, but then you look to find some thing that is part of you."
I reached the end of the passage way to find a massive pedestal with a huge golden cello next to it. The cello turned on it's own to face me with it’s tuning pegs and looked at me and said in a deep voice, "Play"
I walked outside after the meeting and headed home.Every night I felt alive again like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Next week I stood on my hind legs hugging Bon Bon. She loved me because she thought I was in the early stages of Avarian Cancer. So there I was with my legs wrapped around her; being careful not to touch her wings, and my head on her chest getting ready to cry
I was on my holiday.
We continued this embrace until all of a sudden another mare trotted into the room. She was a mint green coat unicorn with light green and white mane. She looked around at everypony and with an unemotional voice said,"The door said this was cancer. Am I in the right place?"
The whole group stared at her dumbfounded. Until Bon Bon nodded at her and in an amused tone the green pony said, "Great, I'll go get my name tag!" She galloped over to the side of the room to a table with the name tags on it. Picked one up with her magic and wrote on it with a quill and then sat down in a slumped position. Her tag said Lyra Heartstrings.
Unicorns do not get Avarian Cancer, nor do they actually get sick at all. They are a generally a perfect breed, resistant to all known diseases. Lyra was obviously a liar, yet she kept coming to my groups. All of them to be exact. What the buck was her problem? She had no reason to be at any of these groups, and she would show off her magic skills in front of everypony. Levitating a chair or lighting some small item on fire. It was annoying and I would glare at her in every meeting. Her lie reflected my lie and it prevented me from crying; Therefore I couldn't sleep.
Few weeks after Lyra's appearance, I was sitting in my Return to Harmony group and once again Lyra was sitting there a few benches behind me. She sat there in her usual slumped position and was making a quill float randomly around the room. Everypony else was able to ignore her, but I couldn't. Every time she did that, I wanted to grab her just and scream in her face:
Lyra, you huge liar! I can't stand you and your magic. I need this, so GET OUT!
The group leader was at the front again and began in her usual soothing voice,"Hello everypony, now before we begin tonight, Carrot Top would like to say a few words."
Oh Carrot Top, was an light orange coat pony with a dark orange, curly mane, but no pony would be able to tell because of the bandana she wore. The group leader motioned her forward; she got up and went to the front of the room. Her words were uneasy, but honest.
"Hello, I am still alive.......but I am not sure for along. The doctors say that they know it will be soon though.
She started tearing up after that, but wiped them away and continued.
"But I do have some good news. I no longer fear death."
Everypony clapped their hooves for her, but she apparently she wasn't done and spoke again in a flustered tone.
"I am still lonely though and I crave the touch of another pony. Mare or colt it doesn't matter to me anymore. I have a strap-on and unicorn shaped dildos for any...."
Upon being lightly tapped by the leader, she stopped talking and sadly sat down with a deep crimson blush. The leader spoke,"Please, thank Carrot Top for her...... uhm brave and honest words"
Nopony dared look at her, but said ,"Thank you Carrot."
We then started meditation and once again I was on my Daring Do adventure. I was inside the temple and glamoring at the beauty of the gold walls and their markings. Reaching the end of the passageway, instead of a pedestal there was Lyra, lazing against a bench until she heard me come in. She sat up to her signature slump, looked straight at me and said silently but it echoed through the hall, "Play."
The anger I felt for her only grew after that vision. She not only ruined my help group's cure to my insomnia, but she invaded my meditations. If I ever discovered any deadly parasite I would name it Lyra, because just like her no amount of magic or poison could rid me of it's existences.
After meditation there was one on one. Perfect time for me to get in her face about this issue. I trotted over to Lyra and without warning, I picked her up dragged her into my hug, but I hugged harder than I normally would. She didn't seem to really care and returned it with welcome hooves. In a flustered whisper I began.
"Why are you going to all my groups?"
"It's slightly entertaining and I enjoy the free salad."
What a bitch.
"How can you say that? These ponies are dying and you find it entertaining."
"No, but I pissed you off, and I find that funny."
FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUU!!
Losing self control right will only make things worse. This must not register on an emotional level. Calmly I responded.
"All right. I need this and I can't cry when there is another faker in the room."
"You seem to have been practicing this. Is it going as well as you hoped?"
"Will you listen, please!" I practically yelled
Everypony around me heard that and looked at us ,and Lyra instantly put her head chest and began to cry. They shrugged it off and went back to the. Bringing my voice back down.
"Please, I just want to get to sleep and this is only way."
Lyra pulled away with a fake tear rolling down her face she said, "Fine, I'll take the groups on every other day starting Monday."
"No, no I want Avarion Cancer and that's Mondays."
"Oohh, is that because you have a thing for Bon Bon?" in a coy tone.
My face turning red,"No, because I am an earth pony. Unicorns don't get cancer."
"All right, whatever you say my little pony." with a smirk grin on her face.
I wanted nothing more than to buck her in the teeth, but seeing that the meeting was over as every pony began to leave. There was no reason to prolong this encounter. She began to walk off, but turned around for a second and said
"What's your name; Minty, Rainbow, Marshmallow? Any of those stupid names you have each night?"
At that moment, a random flash of a white pony with sunglasses appeared and disappeared in less than a second.
What the hell was that?
Ignoring Lyra's question and freaked out by the random flash, I galloped home thinking that maybe I was going insane.
I thank darthrex for editing this one. :)
Hey! Don't Scratch the Vinyl
Being jerked awake from a train stopping is not a pleasant experience. It happens a lot when I falll asleep on the train, and I always manage to have my muzzle face plant with the seat in front of me. Leading to the pony sitting in front of me to turn around and look at me like I am some kind of idiot. Most of the time ,when I apologize, they just roll their eyes and move on with their day, but this one grumpy mare in front of me didn't even give me a chance, and got pissed off. She started cussing at me. I didn't know what to do. I had been traveling for a couple of weeks now and hadn't gotten much sleep, so I was completely delirious to the whole thing. Eventually the train security pulled her off and I thought I would never see her again.
Oh I couldn't have been more wrong.
I loved traveling around to different cities. It was invigorating. The many tall buildings, restaurant, and the different stadiums/venues where the bands and DJs had their live performances. Though one of the major downsides to traveling so much is the change in hours when going through different times zones. You go from one city to next, lose an hour or gain an hour. Making it difficult remember to change the hours on my watch. Which would then also cause problems of me making it to concerts on time, or arriving too late to make the train departure. It was very frustrating, and I felt like I was going to explode.
Secondly, the concerts were fucking terrible. I hated every single one of them. Not one musician could play music that I could dance, or even get me to like for that matter. They were off key with every beat and rhythm, and sounded atrocious with their heavy rift guitars and bass. All sounded like random notes thrown together to make it disorganized sound that the crowd loved. The worst of them all was the DJ concerts. Their loud electro chaotic sound gave me headache with every show, but yet some how all these ponies at the concerts enjoyed every second of the disconnected phone line of a music.
The reason I traveled to so many cities and saw so many concerts was because I was basically there to steal their music. With a recording device, created by a pony named Sterling Bristle, I was able to record the music without any problems. Though the inventor had created 4 or 5 years ago, a few ponies were able to upgrade it making it easier to only capture the music and distort any other unnecessary noise coming from the crowds or loud ringing from the speakers. It was genius device, but yet it sickened me. I may not of liked any of the musicians I saw, but it was their life's work, and here I was recording it for a company that was giving their sound away. And I wonder why I can't sleep at night.
After two weeks of constant travel, I was finally able to come back to Manehatten and upload the songs that I had recorded from the device. Until my boss came in and said,"There is a new upcoming artist named DJPon-3, and she will be here tonight at the Madison Mare Gardens. I need you to get her recordings."
*sigh* The one night I thought I was gonna be able to get to one of my help groups and get some sleep tonight.
Being the obedient that I was, I calmly said,"Yeah, I'll be there."
Nodding to me and trotting away, I just stared at the ceiling, just wondering if Princess Celestia was just making my life hell at this point. Returning my self to task at hoof, I finished downloading all the music files and organizing them on the computer, and then packed up my saddle bags went home to get ready for tonight.
I stood in line at the entrance of the stadium,and staring the massive building in front of me. There were electronic bill boards just flashing between black, electric-blue, and white, with name DJPon-3 in every flash. This was a bit over the top for some DJs, most of them played in small clubs, or smaller venues, but this was a whole stadium for a one pony. I shook my head thinking this was just going to be like any other DJ; loud electronic mess with no proper sound or organization. Sighing loudly, I paid for my ticket and went in to find my seat.
The stadium's outside the arena was a cemented structure with stair wells leading to higher floors. The only tickets you could get were ground level. I trotted to the large cemented entrance in front of me that said: Ground Level. As I entered the arena, I gawked at everything around me.
This massive stadium had seats as high 5 stories tall and had even more of those electronic signs circling the entire perimeter. The ground level was completely made up of fake grass, and had a fairly huge stage in the middle, there were ponies every where, and were wearing some sort of accessory that had DJPon-3 on it.
Maybe she this won't be......
I facehoofed myself.
Don't be stupid. You know that there hasn't been a good musician in the past 10 years.
Once I had calmed down, I made way to the to the front of the large crowd forming in front of the stage. There were ponies packed tight up against each other at the stage, so I had to push most of them out of the way. They glared at me for my rude behavior, but being as grumpy as I was I really didn't care. I had reached the stage finally, and right when I got there the whole stadium lights went dark with the exception of the billboards.
The whole crowd began to cheer, as the sliding doors of the staged opened and some fog machines turned on. Then a hissing sound was coming from the stage. There was another platform coming up from the inside and ,to my eyes discomfort, strobe lights of blue and white began flashing around the edges. They soon stopped and I could see the amazing sight before me.
It was a huge, circular turntable with more buttons and dials than I had ever seen on one, and there in the middle was a white coated unicorn, with a wild, electric blue mane. At this point I had turned on the device to start recording.She was on her hind legs with front up against the table, and her head hung low so not reveal her face yet. She then raised a hoof in the air, all while lifting her head that revealed the violet sunglasses and a wild grin on her face, and slammed it on a button that began a slow loud noise that got louder and louder until......
BOOM!
A loud bass drop exploded across the room. It felt like my eardrums could burst from the sound, and then she continued on with an actual organized measure of beats and rhythm. Every pony around me was dancing and jumping around with their hooves in the air. I stared at them with disgust. Even if this pony had organized beats in her music, I couldn't stand the loud electronic sounds coming from it, and every once in a while I could hear a random moan that sounded like a women's voice. Either it was trick, or I was just hearing things. I shrugged it off and continued to record the show.
After what seemed like an hour, but only five minutes from what time said on the electronic screens, She did some thing I never heard other DJs do. Sounds from a violin began to play and a cello after that, and was becoming in synced with her electronic sound. I had never thought that some pony could pull it off, so well. It was first time I was actually enjoying my self, and was dancing with other ponies.
Unfortunately though, as I was just getting into it.
"Hey, what!? Let me go!" I shouted.
I was being hung in the air by a by buff security unicorn.
He glares at me,"We know why your here and don't appreciate slimy types like yourself to come here and record this music."
My face went white. How did they know? I mean with my pink bow tie and nice mane..... Oh right. Yeah I definitely did not look a pony that belongs here. To think these were the security ponies to actually figure it out. So this one unicorn hung me in the air and brought me into the security office where I sat for hours waiting and practically shaking from what they might do to me. I could still hear the loud music from the arena and soon after everything went quiet, and 30 minutes went by until the door of the office opened and there stood DJPon-3 with two security ponies behind her. A light smile appeared on her face while she looked at me and then turned to the other ponies and said, "Yeah, I can take from here guys. Go finish your business."
The colts were a bit surprised, but they didn't care too much and trotted off.
"So.." She began nicely with a sly grin,"We need to talk."
