“So how many are out there?”
“At least a whole pack of them.”
“That's a lot of raiders, Strider. I ain't so sure about this all of a sudden.”
“Jam, we can do this! We practiced how we'd do it over and over for the last week.” Strider placed a firm but reassuring wing on her shoulder, getting a soft smile that broke through her hesitation.
“Jam's not all that wrong,” Firework said, magic opening his stable coat to show a pistol strapped tightly to his side. “If shit goes down, I don't wanna be the 21st on some raider's gun”
“You got a point,” Strider said before his face scrunched into an irritated scowl. “And don't say it like that! I'm sick of that song. Today we’re gonna finally save Rock 'n' Roll.”
Strider and Jam readied their guitars. Firework clicked his drumsticks together. They steeled themselves, ready to face the raw aggressive judgment that awaited them.
The bar was an old and abandoned ballroom which had been occupied by a hardy raider bunch in Manehatten. It slowly became a raider establishment complete with a bar and many barrels for their ever so needed fireplaces, or at least to dump the latest casualties of a bar fight. They were hanging and hollering from the chains on the ceiling, beating the living snot out of each other in buck fights, playing deadly rounds of Griffon Roulette, and of course taking someone else's food from the fridge without asking. It was a wretched hive of scum and villainy.
As feedback sounds erupted from the speakers on stage, the room fell completely silent as all eyes gazed up at the three ponies that cam on stage. One was a pegasus wearing the scrap remains of Enclave armor, his snout showing bare from his bug eyed helmet, his white wings gripping a microphone stand.
To his side was an earth pony wearing a tattered Steel Ranger scribe robe with it's sleeves ripped off, the ends of her forelegs covered with spiked legbands. Her coat was a somber blue with an aggressive orange mane, and her face was decorated in black makeup.
Behind them sitting at a drum set was a unicorn in a grimy stable suit, spikes welded to his cracked but still functioning pip-buck. His coat was was light grey and his blue mane was done up in liberty spikes that fanned outward like an explosion.
Truth be told, this isn't where any of them thought they'd end up. Each believed that they would continue to live their normal lives in their homes, never stepping foot into the Wasteland. Then it all changed, and as fate would have it they found each other on a boulevard of broken dreams.
From place to place they roamed in search of shelter and work, surviving as best they could with what little they had. One day as they took shelter in an abandoned Ministry of Image building, they stumbled across a heavily guarded door. After the turrets and lock were defeated, they stumbled upon old records of songs from Pre-War unlike the ones they've heard on the radio. These songs were anything but easy listening and swinging tunes, instead opting for wild and fast electric notes with aggressive drum beats. Each record was labeled to be destroyed for being “insensitive to societal order and peace.”
In their former societies, order is what forced them out of their homes, but brought them together. These songs filled them with a sense of joy they hadn't felt in a long time. It was fuel for their souls, passion unabated to be readily conflated as belligerence.
In the same store room they found the instruments that created these wild sounds and song sheets that hid away the music notes. They found purpose and meaning in their discovery, thirsting to learn how to play these songs and sing them as their own. They embodied the songs in image and spirit, and paraded about with them playing loud from Firwork's pip-buck. Passers by were annoyed by the sound and some even threatened violence, but the band didn’t care what they thought so long as it was about them. They needed an audience who would listen, and that is what lead them to this resting spot for raiders. If anypony could appreciate these anarchistic sounds, it would be them.
Now it was just a matter of saying something so that they would not shoot them. Or eat them. Or both.
“So...” Strider paused as he looked at each blood thirsty eye looking back at him. He saw the guns these maniacs held and knew that if they wanted to make their first gig a hit—and survive it at that—he needed to be an arms dealer selling them weapons in the form of words. “You know how the wasteland is filled with ponies who always want something from you?”
“I wanna gouge yer eyes out and feed 'em to my dog!” The crowd gave thunderous holler of approval at the comment.
Strider gulped but fixed the crowd with a sturdy glare. “Yeah. Yeah! See, this guy knows what I'm talking about.” He pointed straight to the pony in question. “You get ponies who have all this stuff, and like, they want more from you when you need stuff for yourself too!” The crowd's hollering died down some as a few members nodded. “Uh huh! So you know, I say they oughtta fuck off.” A loud 'yeah' was joined by more. “Because it's your life, you live it how you want to. I know that's all I want.”
Firework heard his cue and clicked his drumsticks together. Jam got her capped hoof ready against the guitar strings as did Strider. It was time to wake up the fire in their souls.
“Ya, ya, ya, ya, ya!”
An explosion of choreographed noise erupted from the stage, guitars shredding a symphony of rebellious beats against the open doors of the raiders' ears. A thirst of movement took hold of the crowd as the song played on, heads beginning bop and bang—or punched in rhythm—to the tune.
Strider's hooves danced like fire on his guitar, building up the rage he had against the Enclave societal machine. Their curfews, their rations, their population control, their mandate that he couldn't marry the mare he loved. It fed into his movements, wings gripping the mic with newfound ferocity as let spew his venom to the sky-high society.
“Day after day, your home life's a wreck!”
“The powers that be just breathe down your neck!”
“You get no respect, you get no relief!”
“You try to speak up and yell out your piece!”
He quickly inhaled in between short pauses of the lyrics, each resurgence of words more powerful than the other, building up to the loud and proud chorus that summed up his and his band mates’ mindset.
“So back off your rules!”
“Back off your jibe 'cause I'm sick of not living to stay alive!”
“Leave me alone! Not asking a lot,”
“I don't wanna be controlled!”
His band mates joined in, age-old phantom shackles finally breaking in symphony of rebellion.
“That's all I want!”
“That's all I want!”
“That's all I want!”
“That's all I want!”
Strider repeated the quintuplet of words that started off the strataco of anarchy. The crowd began to hoot and holler in praise of the what they were hearing. They had no idea just what in Tartarus they were listening to, but a spell of music had ended any thoughts on the matter. They were fallen entranced by the rocking sounds that bellowed in their halls.
Jam stepped up to the mic next, any anxiety long destroyed by the sounds around her. There was only a feeling of freedom she wished she felt when her chapter had banished her from the bunker. She spoke her mind then and this time she was going to shout it out.
“How many times is it gonna take?”
“'Till somepone around you hears what you say!”
“You’ve tried being cool, you feel like a lie!”
“You’ve played by their rules, now it's their turn to try!”
The chorus made resounding return, Strider and Jam going back-to-back with each other as they sang into the mic. Each band mate singing grew louder in unison, all the while the raiders began to throw their entire bodies into their enthralled dances. Forehooves shot up into the air and pumped in excited fervor. Even those who were busy beating each other took a moment to cheer on the band as they finished the second chorus.
Firework himself began to lose himself in the hard beats he was slamming down on his drums. His magic worked with a force to pound so hard that the sticks could chip under the pressure. It reminded him of the snot-nosed bullies that bothered him in his foal years, and the hoof full of comeuppance he gave them years later. Of course, one of the being the overmare's colt lead to a harsh and drastic decision to exile him from his Stable, a precautionary 'safety measure' that left only a blackened hatred in him, and that only this music could sooth with furious swinging of his sticks.
“I said it before!”
“I'll say it again!”
“If you'd just listen then in might make sense!”
The energy reached its height. One more chorus, one more strings of wild notes to play before the song can finally close. The feverish desire to scream out their frustrations spread like a disease to the crowd. Without thinking, Strider turned the mic over to the audience and in return he got a thundering chant of the chorus beaming back at him. All the cracked, strained, and ear-grating voices united into one clenched hoof of defiance against all their grievances. There were loathsome, scum of the Wastes, and this one night they sang together like a family caught in a folk song. Strider had to fight to remember he was the lead vocalist and brought the mic back his mouth to close the song off the way it started, accompanied by Firework's closing drum beats.
Breathing returned with harsh abruptness to Strider and the gang as they drank in the heat that had come over them. They're fur was mired with sweat and their bodies felt like they had just been released from a mold. The world seemed muted in color and sound for a moment, but their senses all came back to them.
Roaring, rambunctious, rancorous cheers reverberated against the walls of the bar. Wild and manic hollering egged and begged for more of the sound they just heard. The feeling the band felt was, in an odd sense, heartwarming. In such a long time, they never had an out pour of approval directed at them, and from wretches no less.
They looked at each other in silent agreement that this was the first day of the rest of their lives.
“Raiders! Raiders! Raiders!” The crowd chanted the word as if it was more than just a description, but an idea. A title. The band had finally gotten their name on that stage.
This was their home, their identity, their family. And they were asking for an encore.
Author's Note
Credit must go to The Offspring for writing such an awesome song.
Also, can you spot all the music references? (Honestly, there's not a lot. 
)
