Shining Armor trudged inside the bedroom, closing the door behind him softly. In pitch-black darkness, he stepped across the room in search of the bathroom door. Sadly, he only made it halfway there before Cadence made herself known, lighting up a bedside candle.
“Late night?” she asked, sitting up in bed.
Shining halted where he stood. “Well, you know how it is sometimes… bigger project than usual tonight.”
Even in the dimly lit room, Cadence could tell Shining was out of breath, nearly panting. His mane was soaked with sweat, as was his fur.
“Bigger project?” Cadence asked with a hint of edge. “Bigger than the one two nights ago? Or the one two nights before that?”
Shining took a step towards the bed, trying desperately to catch his breath. “I mean, you should’ve seen the puzzle I was working on tonight, Cadence. One thousand pieces this time! And none of that easy Canterlot castle scenery, either! This one was all white! Like… marshmallows… clouds… white, fluffy kittens! You know how hard an all-white puzzle is? It was a nightmare. Surprised it didn’t take me longer than it did.”
“Uh-huh.” Cadence loudly clicked her tongue together. “You know, as much as I don’t mind your Personal Puzzle Time down in your… what do you call it again?”
“My horse cave,” Shining replied. “Most stallions have one nowadays.”
“Anyways, I think the bigger question here is: is it normal to sweat that much doing puzzles in the basement?”
Shining nodded studiously. “If they’re as technical as the ones I’ve been doing, I would say so. And did I mention the kittens were holding hard-boiled eggs?”
“And that makes you this out of breath?” Cadence questioned.
“You know how many stairs there are in this Empire, Cadence? More than a few, I’ll tell you.” He tried for a smile that never arrived. He merely continued to pant. “Mind if I take a quick shower before we continue? I still smell like sticky puzzle glue.”
Cadence hesitated, sure another question would pop inside her head. When none did, she simply gave him a nod and watched as Shining continued towards the bathroom. Until…
“What was that?” she asked.
“What was what?”
“Something fell off your back. Let me see what it is.”
“No, that’s fine. I got it. I’m closer.”
“You’re forgetting I have a horn, Shining. Let me just—”
Cadence gasped as she held the colorful mane scrunchie aloft.
Shining’s pupils shrunk as his labored breath only grew worse.
“Care you explain whose this is?” Cadence asked.
“Mine?”
***
Stair after stair, Cadence led Shining down, the aura around one of his pointed ears as painful as pliers. Shining winced as she gave his ear another tug.
“Careful, Cadence!” Shining yelped. “Pony ears are sensitive!”
Obviously, Cadence knew that. She just didn’t care.
They came to a halt before a small wooden door. On it was a poster that read: “SHINING’S HORSE CAVE—STAY OUT!” and below that (and far more infuriating given the current circumstance) “NO MARES ALLOWED”.
Shining turned to her once his ear was released. “How many times do I have to tell you, Cadence? Sometimes I tie my mane back while doing puzzles.”
Cadence held up the scrunchie in question. “Bright pink with cupcake decals?”
“I can’t help it if they were the only ones on sale.”
The pair pressed inside and Cadence was taken aback by just how small the place really was. She ignited another set of candles nearby and timidly glanced around the circular room, finding mostly what she’d expected to find in a “stallion’s only” den.
One ratty futon. One beanbag chair. One lava lamp and two scratched-up glow-in-the-dark posters. One glass cabinet loaded with collectable Power Ponies toys (or “action figures” as Shining quickly corrected). One small closet. One work table with gas lamp. One fully completed puzzle on said work table.
Cadence stood overtop the table for awhile, studying the completed puzzle. Had she been jumping at shadows this entire time? If so, then why did something still feel off?
While Cadence glanced around, Shining positioned himself before a wide wooden dresser. “See, Cadence? Just a puzzle. Same one I was telling you about. See how useful a scrunchie would become completing such a thing?”
Cadence nodded, but without much emotion. “You mentioned marshmallows in the puzzle.”
“Yep.”
“Yet all I see is blotches of whipped cream in the picture. No marshmallows at all.”
Shining leaned against the dresser behind him, covering as much of it as he could. “Well… you know… sort of look alike, don’t they?”
“So, that means you spent three hours staring at one picture and still couldn’t remember what was on it? Shining, if something’s going on down here, I need to know. Now. Before it gets worse.”
Shining chuckled weakly. “Sure! Fine! You got it! But how about anywhere but here? Like back upstairs for instance? Or in the kitchen? Or on the roof?”
Turning back around, Cadence was quick to notice Shining’s sweat drenched face. “What are you hiding, Shining? Clearly, there’s something behind you I’m not supposed to see.”
Shining chuckled again. “Would you believe an early Heart and Hooves Day gift?”
“Considering the amazing fridge magnet I got last year, no,” Cadence quipped, before using her horn to both freeze Shining in place before shoving his rigid figure aside.
What Cadence saw atop the dresser sucked the air out of her lungs.
On top of the dresser was another half-dozen scrunchies, next to a pair of very thick sunglasses. Across from that was a random collection of mare cosmetics: lipstick, eyeliner, blush. As well as a laminated VIP card next to a very thin bottle near the corner.
Cadence couldn’t stop her eyes from filling with tears.
“Who is she?” she asked him with quivering jaw. “Does she live down here or something? Or does she only pop by when it’s Shining’s Personal Puzzle Time? I mean… do you two actually do puzzles after fornicating or is that all just coverup? Better yet, I don’t want to know. I’m disgusted.”
Once free from her hold, Shining held a hoof out to her. “Don’t overreact, Cadence. Give me a chance to explain—perhaps something I should’ve done a long time ago.” He took a long breath to steady himself. “Truth be told, there has been a mare down here. She’s been in this room quite a few times, in fact.”
A tear trickled down one of Cadence’s cheeks. “Gee, thanks. I’m feeling so much better now.”
“Let me finish. It’s just… just not very easy to explain.”
“Actually, it is, Shining! Give me a name! Just give me a damn name!”
“Vinyl Scratch,” Shining whispered out. “Or DJ Pon-3, as she’s also known.”
Cadence wiped the tear away. Now she was just plain confused. “The mare that DJ’d our wedding? That’s who you’re cheating on me with?”
Again, Shining held out a hoof to her. “No! No. Let me finish. Or… better yet… let me show you, alright?” Following that sentence, he returned to his hidden dresser and picked up the thick pair of purple sunglasses on top, placing them over his eyes. “Starting to get the picture?”
Cadence roughly shook her head. “What am I seeing now? Cool Shining Armor? You know, just because you put on sunglasses before you cheat, doesn’t mean you haven’t cheated, Shining.”
“Fine. Fine,” Shining said, grabbing the thin bottle off the dresser and downing it fast. “Don’t freak-out now. You said you wanted the truth.”
In an instant, Shining was engulfed in brilliant white light. Rising two feet into the air, a haunting melody filled the cramped room. The light was so blinding, Cadence eventually had to shut her eyes, only reopening them a full minute later. Then she gasped and choked on air.
Before her stood the unicorn mare known as Vinyl Scratch. Yet something was off. Shining Armor’s cutie mark remained. As did his normal mane style. Not to mention his lower stallion voice.
“Pretty convincing, isn’t it?” the not-quite Vinyl Scratch yet not-quite Shining Armor asked. “The effect gets even better when I brush my mane a bit and cover up the cutie mark.” And as he spoke, he did just that, grabbing a thick brush from one the dresser’s many drawers.
“I… umm… alright, then.” Cadence had been so ready to storm out only moments ago—kick and scream and wake up the whole Empire if need be—now she honestly didn’t know what to feel, besides more puzzled than the thousand-piece puzzle behind her.
“So, you secretly take a gender switching potion to become Vinyl Scratch at night?” she asked him bluntly.
Shining snorted, finishing up with his mane. Turned out, he’d been right. The moment he completed styling his mane like the popular DJ’s, it was difficult to tell them apart. Especially once he slapped a fake cutie mark sticker over his own.
“You make it seem as if I am Vinyl Scratch,” Shining told her calmly. “Truth be told, I just pretend to be. Three times a week.”
“Okay. And why?”
Shining shrugged. “To play shows. Mostly the ones she doesn’t have time for. Even a pony as busy as Vinyl Scratch needs a break once in a while. And with both of us out on the road year-round, we can collectively rack up close to three hundred gigs a year! As long as nopony catches on, of course. Obviously, that means no overlapping shows, which her manager seems pretty good at organizing.”
Using her forelegs, Cadence made a T-sign in the air. “Hold up. Pump the breaks. Let me see if I can wrap my head around all this. What you’re telling me is that every time you say you’re going downstairs to work on puzzles, what you’re actually doing is transforming into a Vinyl Scratch lookalike to play shows across Equestria?”
Shining nodded enthusiastically. “Basically. And the potion isn’t all that bad, either. More like a diet potion. Lasts about four hours, roughly. Enough time to get to the gig, do a meet-and-greet, do soundcheck, get on stage—”
“You do meet-and-greets, too?” Cadence cut in roughly. “But doesn’t that mean you have to talk to ponies? Don’t they notice something’s off once they hear your voice?”
“Nope,” Shining answered happily. Smiling like that in his “mare” form was oddly cute, Cadence found. The sunglasses only added to this effect. “That’s one of Vinyl Scratch’s best gimmicks—no words, just music! So all I have to do is pose, sign some pictures, get hit on by drunk stallions—”
“Beg pardon?” Cadence interrupted.
“Hey! It’s not like I flirt back!” Shining then crossed the room to stand beside a plastic treasure chest he must’ve had when he was a colt. “See?”
Inside, nearly glowing, were hundreds upon hundreds of ticket stubs with names and messages on them. Some even had doodles of hearts or music notes, as well as more inappropriate images.
Cadence stared at the overloaded chest. “Each of these came from a single stallion?”
“Or mare. Why?”
“Just thinking of a few Princesses that haven’t gone out in a while.”
Then she lit up her horn and sent the contents of the chest flying.
***
Princess Celestia opened another letter to find more junk mail. With a sigh, she crumpled it up and tossed it away. Then she was suddenly ambushed by an avalanche of paper.
When everything eventually settled, she grabbed one and read it over.
“From your biggest flying fan, Aerial Ace. XOXO. Here’s my address…”
Celestia lifted her head and called into the adjoining room.
“Hey, Luna! Do you know a pony named Aerial Ace?”
And from the other room came, “No. Why?”
“Do you want to?”
***
And back in Shining’s horse cave:
“Okay,” Cadence continued, pacing across the small round room. “I still have about another thousand questions for you, so here’s the next one: since when did you even play an instrument? Doesn’t a pony still need at least some musical skills to pose as a musician?”
“Kinda. Kinda not.” Shining opened the bottom drawer of his dresser, pulling out a wide DJ turntable complete with two spinners and a wide variety of buttons and knobs. In the blink of an eye, he set it up on the futon and plugged it into some speakers. “This is my practice turntable.”
Cadence stood close by to watch. “Looks complicated.”
“Not really,” Shining explained. “See all these knobs and dials and such?”
“Yep.”
“Those are all for show. None of mine actually work. All I have to do, is select a new record—” Shining said as he did just that, unveiling a hidden box of records from underneath the futon. “—plunk it into place, start the music, nod my head to the beat, and presto-change-o! It’s like Vinyl Scratch is right in front of you!”
As the funky music started, Shining did just that, bobbing his head back and forth with the tempo. When the beat slowed, so did he. And when it got fast again, his whole body reacted, raising both forelegs into the air as though he just didn’t care.
Cadence inspected another row of buttons on the turntable, as well as the biggest button of them all. She reached for it, only to be stopped by Shining.
“W-wait!” Shining implored. “Don’t touch that one! Not unless you know exactly what you’re dealing with. That’s the D.T.B. button. Or the Drop the Beat button if you’re new to all this.”
Cadence cocked a brow. “And I take it once that’s pressed, the beat drops?”
“Only half the time. That’s what makes it so exciting. Will the beat drop? Will it not?”
Shining gasped as Cadence pushed the button regardless of his warning. They both held their breath. Nothing happened.
“See?” Shining asked. “Half the time it just—”
“DROP DAT FUNKY BEAT!” the speakers roared, before the crunchiest groove of all time oozed out of them, drowning out all noise and sanity in that section of the Empire.
Both Cadence and Shining shrieked, before Shining simply turned the volume down.
Cadence held a hoof to her chest. “I’m… I’m not sure anypony should wield such power, Shining. That was… that was all consuming. It was like my brain turned to jelly and then I ate that jelly and still wanted more.”
Shining only smirked. “I like some of these other buttons myself. Makes each show more unique.” From one button to the next he pressed, each one letting out a short cartoonish sound effect. He saved the best ones for last.
“Y’all ready for this!?” the speakers screamed from the latest button press.
Shining turned to Cadence. “And you know what? Most of the time, ponies are indeed ready for that. Besides that one time I had a gig in Appleloosa and asked if everypony was ready. Turned out: nope. No one was. Then when I went to drop the beat, you know what happened?”
“What?” Cadence asked with bated breath.
“No pony caught it. Not a single one of them. Makes sense, though, now that I think about it. My opening act there was a duck that played banjo.” He shook his head to clear it. “But this button’s fun, too. Like sometimes, I’ll point to somepony in the crowd and have the spotlight shine on them. Then I’ll press this…”
He pressed it. “Hey! You!”
Then another. “Stay groovy!”
“I actually made a pony faint once just by doing that,” Shining explained proudly.
“Really?” Cadence said. “Just from that?”
“Well, his acute alcohol poisoning might’ve had something to do with it as well, but I like to take some of the credit.”
Something suddenly clicked in Cadence’s head. “Speaking of credit… Vinyl Scratch honestly doesn’t mind you parading around as her? Using her songs? Her likeness?”
Noticing the tension in the room basically gone, Shining settled onto his beanbag chair. “Considering it was her idea? Let me explain a few things. You remember our wedding, yes?”
Cadence sighed and rolled her eyes. “The happiest yet worst day of my life? Yes. Yes, I do in fact remember that day.”
“That was the first time I ever heard Vinyl Scratch, alright? I thought she was good, so I booked her for one of Twilight’s birthdays months later. We chatted a few times—out of character, mind you—and she went on to say how tired she was getting from all the gigs and promotion and I jokingly said that since we look so much alike, I could take a few of the gigs off her hooves and… and years later that very thing just happened.”
“And who’s idea was it for the mare potion?”
“Mine. Can’t say all those high school chemistry classes went to waste. And the best part about everything is that I get half the bits from every gig I perform. Only fair when it’s her music and image on display.”
Cadence leaned forward in interest. “You make money off this? Like… a lot?”
“A little bit,” Shining told her, rising from his beanbag chair to retrieve a glass jar from his dresser—a jar full to the brim with bits. “This was the first goal; just enough to buy Flurry Heart some new toys come Hearth’s Warming Eve.”
Cadence eyed the stuffed jar. “Was there a second goal?”
Like a magician, Shining opened the door to the room’s only closet, revealing a jar large enough for two ponies to stand in. Halfway full of golden bits, too.
Cadence’s mouth went slack. “There has to be enough bits in there to buy a whole pool, Shining.”
“Why not two pools? Or one with a built-in ice cream bar?”
On the futon, Cadence patted the only remaining seat so Shining would sit. She had to remove the trademark sunglasses just to remember who she was talking to.
“Listen,” she began earnestly, “as weird as this all is—and it really is, now that I think on it—I’m honestly not mad. Just… surprised is all. Why didn’t you ever mention anything to me before? Why go behind my back over the last six months?”
Shining scratched at the back of his neck. “I don’t know, Cadence. I guess I thought it would just blow over soon; like after a dozen shows or whatnot, Vinyl would call the whole thing off. I think she’s been enjoying all that extra free time with her marefriend.” He paused, debating to himself. “And I mean, it’s still an odd conversation no matter what. Like ‘Hey, Cadence! Mind if I transform into a mare three times a week to perform in front of hundreds of screaming fans?’ Not exactly breakfast table material.”
Grabbing one of Shining’s hooves to hold in her own, Cadence told him, “Seriously, Shining? We live in Equestria, remember? Every Friday is basically doomsday. A conversation about switching genders for an evening would’ve almost been refreshing. And I really hope this isn’t all about money.”
Shining added another hoof to hers. “Maybe at the start, but I can’t deny that it’s fun. Once that music starts and the adrenaline kicks in and everypony is screaming at you—excited to see you! There’s really not much like it. And I guess it’s just nice to cut loose every once in a while.”
“You know, I also like to cut loose once in a while, Shining. Even while raising a family, I still like to go out sometimes.”
He turned to her and found her grinning. “Oh?”
“When’s your next gig?”
He returned the playful grin. “Two nights from now. In Canterlot. Why?”
“Need a backup dancer? I still recall some sick moves from my cheerleading days.”
“Well, you know that I’d have no problems with that… it’s just Vinyl Scratch’s backup dancers are usually stallions.”
Cadence tipped him a wink. “You’re not the only one that passed chemistry, you know.”
***
As Shining rocked the DJ booth (or nodded his head as best he could to the rhythm), Cadence did loops around the stage, feeding off the energy from the hundreds in attendance. Near the end of the lively performance, Shining ushered her towards the turntable and let her smash a far more masculine than normal hoof against the D.T.B. button.
“DROP DAT FUNKY BEAT!”
And, so, the beat was dropped. And all was well.
Cadence even surprised Shining with a quick peek on the cheek, momentarily forgetting just who was who and just where they were. Regardless, the crowd cheered.
She whispered into Shining’s ear, “Flurry Heart doesn’t hear about this until she’s eighteen.”
“How about twenty-one?”
“Make it thirty. Just to be safe.”
Author's Note
I had the idea of Shining secretly being Vinyl Scratch for a while (similar color scheme), but quickly realized she played at their damn wedding. So, this was the alternative.
