Hoofman wrote up a new ad, looking for a new drummer. Matej made it clear he wasn’t likely to return. PonyHeart was recording their first demo, and they weren’t about to back out. Hoofman made it clear to the rest of the band that they weren’t recording the Valley of the Damned demos until a new drummer arrived. Finally, their call was replied to. A Prench drummer by the name of Didier Almouzni said he’d be at the main music studio in Hong Trot.

Hoofman and Sam arrived at the music studio at the scheduled time. In the corner, they spotted a coal black pegasus lighting a cigarette. He had another long, black mane. A golden watch was wrapped around one of his forelegs.

“Why do the ponies we hire always have long manes?” Sam mumbled under his breath.

“I’d presume you’re Didier,” Hoofman said.

“Maybe, sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not,” he replied cryptically.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“I’m here to join PonyHeart.”

“You’re in the right place, the rest of the band should be arriving.”

As if on cue, the rest of the band stepped in, Hoofman introduced them one at a time. Suddenly, Williams spoke up, addressing Didier,”I like you,”

“We should record,” Hoofman said. He counted off the song, but when he hit the end of the countdown, only Sam and him started playing. They stopped quickly and looked over to where the rest of the band were having conversation amongst themselves. Williams and Trott were bickering together, like usual.

“I said, we should record!” Hoofman shouted, and everypony stopped talking. Hoofman counted out the song again, and everypony started playing. A couple times PonyHeart screwed up, but they just took the song from the top. Finally they recorded the title track Valley of the Damned.

In this session, Williams announced that he was going to take a break from PonyHeart for a while, he made it clear that he would be back. Everypony returned to their house.

Hoofman and Sam sat at their dinner table and wrote a song together. Williams went back to his hotel, and retired for the night. Trott also took to his hotel. An interesting case was ZP, he was running low on funds, and the hotel sure wasn’t going to keep a pony for free. He had to make it known next practice.

Next practice, ZP was looking troubled,”What’s wrong?” Trott asked.

“I might have to leave Hong Trot,” ZP said,”my funds are running low.”

“We’ll be here to help,” said Hoofman,”now, me and Sam wrote a song last night, we call it Starfire, I’d like for it to be on the demo.”

“We need our keyboardist!” Sam said.

“I’m with Sam over there,” Trott butted in,”what good is a snyth-driven Metal band without synth?”

“I’d prefer we have him,” Didier replied.

“Alright, no recording until Williams comes in,” Hoofman sighed, this band might get somewhere one day.

Hoofman and Sam had finished writing the last song for the demo, which they wanted to be about 4 songs. The song was called Black Fire. Unfortunately, PonyHeart couldn’t record it, as Williams was gone. They really had nothing to do until said keyboardist arrived, so they waited.

ZP was kicked out of his hotel for lacking the funds, everypony else had gotten part-time night jobs except for him. He wrote out a letter to Hoofman and Sam.

Hoofman got the letter, he wrote back to ZP that they’re trying as hard as they can, and he’d see what he could do. He called up Williams and pestered him to join again.

It took two months, but Williams finally caved. He said he’d join the band again. The next day, Hoofman found Williams talking with Didier. He sat his stuff up, and Sam came in. He took out his blue guitar.

“Your guitar is bucking awesome!” ZP said.

“Why else would I have it?” Sam said.

“Alright everypony!” Hoofman said,”Me and Sam wrote a song called Black Fire, I want you all to perform in it.” After a few tries, everypony finally finished the song. “Great job, now we should throw these tapes together and create the demo!”

With that, the Valley of the Damned demo was done, Hoofman sent out a few copies to several publishers. He awaited approval. Finally, a company called Noise Vinyls said they’d publish PonyHeart’s work. There was much rejoicing. Everyone was super happy, and then Hoofman said,”I have an idea! Let’s tour around the world to promote this demo! Let’s get two other bands too, because there’s only 4 songs, how about Alicorn and Stratovarius?”

“Bucking awesome!” ZP said.

“I don’t like this idea...” Trott said.

“Got any better ideas?” Sam snarked to Trott.

Didier said nothing, as was typical.

The very next day, Hoofman and Sam gathered the band together for touring plans when Trott stood up.”Look, I’m not wild about this idea,” he started,”this PonyHeart thing isn’t working out for me, I’m leaving the band.”

Hoofman was about to bade him farewell when Williams spoke up,”For once, I agree with Trott, I’m leaving PonyHeart.”

“Go on your way,” Hoofman said. But inside he was secretly freaking out, now they needed a keyboardist and a bassist. For now, they’d use touring members.

“I see a problem,” Didier said with a gravelly voice, to this day, Hoofman still was put off a bit by him.”We have no money,” he said.

“We all have jobs don’t we?” Hoofman said,”Let’s pool our money.”

After doing so, Hoofman and Sam saw they had enough money for one tour only, the jobs didn’t pay much. “I hope to Celestia this works,” he said.

PonyHeart as a whole purchased train tickets. While standing in line for said tickets, ZP spotted a band playing just outside the boarding platform. The entire band was great, and PonyHeart headbanged along. After purchasing the tickets, they laid in front of the band, they were a synth-driven metal band, like PonyHeart. The keyboardist was amazing, which was great for a synth-driven metal band. They were asking for donations. PonyHeart listened to the end of the song, donated, and heard the keyboardist say,”That’s all for today folks!” As he hopped down from the stage.

PonyHeart was astonished,”Got any engagements?” He asked the keyboardist.

“Yes, I’m part of a band.” He said.

Hoofman got a good look at him, he was a light blue pegasus with a backwards cap on. His electric keyboard was slung across his body. “If you don’t mind,” Hoofman said,”would you like to tour with ours? Our keyboardist and bassist just left and we’re going on tour in — how long Didier?”

“One hour,” he said, glancing at his watch.

“Yeah, we really need a keyboardist and bassist.”

“Why didn’t you say so! Diccon, get down here! Name’s Vadim by the way, Vadim Pruzhanov.”

A cream unicorn with a dirty blonde long mane lept from the stage and landed with a audible wince, as his right hind leg collapsed, he quickly righted himself. “What, Vadim?” He asked.

“These folks are looking for a keyboardist and bassist, wanna join?”

“Sure!” Diccon called, limping up to PonyHeart,”Name’s Diccon Lyre, nice to meet you!”

“You can just leave a band like that?” Hoofman asked,”You’re crazy!”

“It was more of a for-fun band, we should go with a serious one.”

“Let’s go!” Sam called,”The train can leave without us!”

Everypony high-tailed it after that, making the train right before it left.

“Tickets please,” the stallion on the loading dock said. Hoofman gave him the tickets, luckily, Diccon and Vadim were planning on going somewhere, so they weren’t short. They hopped on the train.

“We’re going to be in here for a while, Hoofman said, getting a seat. “Diccon, I notice that you’re limping, anything wrong?”

“Nope, nothing,” he said quickly.

Hoofman realized that he wasn’t going to get any information. So he looked over the next stop, Prance. “Let’s hope this tour goes well,” Hoofman said, and everypony agreed.

***

“Are we there yet?” Diccon asked skittishly.

“Like the last twelve times you asked that, no!” Sam yelled.

“He’s just like this, it’s something you learn to live with,” Vadim said.

A few minutes later, the train stopped and PonyHeart got off. They went through security and got a hotel. Everypony retired to their rooms, it was going to be a long day tomorrow.

Hoofman woke up to an alarm, or more specifically, Sam flipping on and off the light in the room. “Wake up!” Hoofman obliged. He brushed his mane, a side effect of it being so long, and trotted down to the lobby, where the rest of the band was waiting.

“Let’s go!” Vadim shouted. They had to leave early for reaching the venue on time. Vadim had called up a taxi, a pony-drawn carriage, and asked for the destination. “La Zénith!” Vadim said, and the ‘driver’ happily obliged.

They arrived at La Zénith in time for the concert, Vadim tipped the ‘driver’ generously. They unloaded their instruments, Didier used a venue-supplied drumset, as drums were hard to pack and grumbled about it the whole time.” I asked for a black drumset! This is not black, this is grey!” He said while trotting toward the stage.

“Just shut up,” Hoofman said. Soon, they arrived on stage, waiting for their cue.

“Fillies and gentlecolts! I introduce the power metal band of the ages! PonyHeart!”

“That’s our cue,” Hoofman said. PonyHeart walked on stage, the crowd wasn’t super thick, but they had one.

“Get ready for some bucking shit everypony!” ZP shouted at the top of his lungs. “I present to you PonyHeart, and our new demo, Valley of the Damned!”

They launched into their first song, everypony trying as best they could, unfortunately, the music was complicated. So they didn’t do perfect, but they did a pretty damn good job. The crowd cheering, ZP coaxed them into their next song with these words:”I’d like to thank everypony for coming tonight, we’re here to promote our Valley of the Damned demo. Now get ready for our next song, Heart of a Dragon!”

This continued on for three songs, at the fourth, ZP said,”Unfortunately, that’s all we have, thank you for listening! I’m ZP Theart, we have Hoofman Li and Sam Trotman on guitar, Diccon Lyre on bass, Vadim Pruzhanov on keyboards, and Didier Almouzni on drums! We are PonyHeart, and this has been a damn good night! Enjoy Starfire everypony! Alicorn and Stratovarius too!”

They concluded the PonyHeart part of the concert, the band went backstage. “You’re a great crowd-starter!” Hoofman exclaimed.

“Thank you,” ZP said,”my voice is bucking shot though. I don’t think I could go on much longer.”

“Alright, let’s just enjoy that this tour is mildly successful,” Vadim said.

“I’m so excited that we might become something big one day!” Diccon said.

“Me too,” Hoofman said.

“So, now shall we just go?” Didier put in, lighting another cigarette.

“No, the band needs to stay until the show’s over.”

So, they did just that, when the concert ended, PonyHeart came out from backstage and bowed before the audience.

The rest of the tour went as planned, with no unexpected surprises. The returned to Hong Trot, Hoofman and Sam split the money and gave everyone a place to live. Sam insisted on staying at Hoofman’s house,”We can write more songs together!” he said. Hoofman agreed hesitantly, but he really had no choice. The year soon came to a close.

Author's Note

I got dislikes and no constructive criticism. 😐

But, I did try to clean up what I thought most people would hate, I made the story easier to follow and gave the characters some personalities, which I’ll continue next chapter through visits to each band member by Hoofman.

Also, you see why I changed the rating of this to teen, there’s profanity, and I’m planning on adding more, because ZP’s pretty infamous for being profane.

Enjoy the chapter everypony, and contructive criticism’s encouraged.