Second Chances

Second Chances
By Hero541
Chapter 8: I’m Gonna Save This

Rainbow cantered up to Carousel Boutique slowly, dreading what she was about to do. In her head, she knew she should have told him there’s no way in Tartarus she would go to Vinyl’s show. Not even Pinkie Pie would go to those shows! However, no matter how much she didn’t want to be in this position, here she stood, right outside the boutique. Here goes nothing she thought, raising her hoof and gently knocking on the door.

“Coming!” chimed Rarity, and soon the sound of her hoofsteps were present.

Rarity opened the door to see a very hesitant looking Rainbow Dash standing outside.

“Oh!” exclaimed the unicorn, leaning out the door and looking around for anypony else, “Hello, Rainbow. What can I do for you?”

“Is Josh here?” asked the colorful pegasus, rubbing her forelegs together.

“Right here.”

Rainbow looked past Rarity and saw Josh standing there, a small smile gracing his face. His pupils were rather small right now, though it was fairly bright in the boutique, so she simply wrote that off to the light. He was dressed in a long blue shirt that had a headphone logo on the front. His jeans were baggier than normal and rode low on his hips, his fabric belt hanging loosely to the side, barely holding up his pants. On his head, he wore a black baseball cap similar to the one Rainbow owned, only it had a flat bill.

“What exactly are you two doing tonight?” asked Rarity suspiciously as Josh walked past her and through the door.

“We’re going to see Vinyl Scratch’s show.” said Josh, turning back to Rarity as Rainbow raised up in the air, “That’s why I had you make these clothes for me. I needed something to wear to this thing tonight.”

“Oh. Okay then.” Rarity slowly replied, watching as Josh and Rainbow walked away, “What time will you be back?”

“Don’t know. Don’t wait up for me though.”

“Alright then.” said Rarity, slowly closing the door.

Josh walked, while Rainbow floated near his eye level, her fluttering wings making a soft whoosh noise as they cut through the air.

“So,” said Rainbow, eager to break the silence between them, “what’s with that name you told Vinyl last night at the bar?”

“You mean Xploshun?” he asked, smiling as the name graced his lips again, “That’s my stage name. My agent said that if I wanted to make it anywhere in the world of dubstep, I needed a stage name. Something harsh and awesome, like the music itself.”

“Oh.” said Rainbow, understanding sinking in.

The two of them talked for a little while longer as they walked towards the town center. Upon arriving, they saw the place was pretty deserted. Only about twenty-five or thirty ponies milled about, most looking bored, a few even in an almost zombie-like trance of exhaustion. Josh and Rainbow walked through the gathered crowd, headed for the stage at the center of the area.

“That’s it?” asked Josh, looking at the stage.

There wasn’t much to see. The platform was only raised about five feet off the ground. On its surface was a small setup with a turntable and two subwoofers. A small soundboard sat next to the turntable, and, from what Josh could tell, pretty much everything was running off this one device. Two larger speakers sat to the side, but they were still barely taller than the table itself. A few lights stood on posts all around the stage, each one pointing down to the turntable and soundboard, right where Vinyl would be standing. Josh was so mesmerized by the setup, that he never saw Vinyl approach he and Rainbow.

“Hey guys!” she cheerily called, causing only Rainbow to turn around.

Rainbow nudged Josh, breaking him from his trance and forcing him to turn and see Vinyl.

“Hey Vinyl.” Rainbow said, rather weakly, “You ready for the show?”

“To be honest, Rainbow, I’m actually pretty nervous right now.” confessed the unicorn, rubbing her forelegs together nervously, “But Tavi says I’ll do just fine.”

“We think you’ll do great. Don’t we, Xploshun?” said Rainbow, looking towards Josh.

He said nothing and simply nodded at Vinyl, eliciting a large smile from her.

“Well, it’s almost time to go on. See you guys when we get to an intermission!”

Vinyl dropped her purple sunglasses over her eyes and took off towards the stage, leaving Rainbow and Josh to simply stare at each other, both thinking the same thing: What have I gotten myself into? Vinyl galloped up to the stage, and took her place behind the turntable.

“What’s up, everypony!” she yelled through the microphone, causing a high pitched squeal of feedback, “You guys ready to lose your minds?!”

A few ponies cheered, while the rest simply politely stomped their hooves. Vinyl levitated a record to the turntable and placed it gently on, starting a heavy thumping bass beat that barely made the stage it was on shake. She began to scratch the record back and forth for awhile, distorting the sound, but not achieving much else. This went on for about a half-hour, moving from one song to the next till Vinyl had to switch the record. The sound quality was off too, almost like one of the speakers wasn’t working.

Once the last song was done, she levitated the record off, placing it back in her box before addressing the crowd.

“I hope you can all stay excited, everypony!” she said, eliciting a few small cheers once more, “We’re gonna take a short intermission, then we’ll get back to it.”

Vinyl stepped off the stage, panting a little and running to find Josh and Rainbow. Eventually, she saw them in the crowd and ran over.

“Hey!” she called to them, causing both to turn around and face her, “How was that for you?!”

“That was… good, Vinyl.” said Rainbow Dash, scratching the back of her neck nervously, “Really good.”

“You think so? Cause I thought that they weren’t really getting into it at first, but I’m pretty sure more ponies were cheering when I got off the stage!”

I can only imagine why thought Rainbow Dash, looking down towards the ground. The two ponies talked for a little while, the whole time Rainbow giving Vinyl false praise while the cream colored unicorn soaked it up. Neither one of them even noticed that Josh was no longer standing near them.

*****

Josh couldn’t take much more of this. Vinyl was making a mockery of electronic music, and he was hell-bent on saving this show if it was the last thing he did. He slowly snuck up to the stage, approaching some of the ponies who were working with the equipment.

“Which one of you is in charge of the setup here?” he demanded, racing up to the group.

“That’d be me.” said a gray pegasus stallion with a white mane and a wall socket for a cutie mark.

“Do you have any idea what the fuck you’re doing?” said Josh, as calmly as he could muster.

The pegasus looked taken aback by Josh’s use of profanity, but responded, “Of course I do!”

Josh looked at the setup and all the wires leading to the soundboard. A lot of wires were either not in the right place or not even plugged in. Clearly, this was why the audio quality had been shit the entire night. The left speaker was unplugged from the soundboard.

“How in the fuck do you forget to plug in the goddamn speaker?!” he said, more to himself than anypony around him.

Frantically, he began checking wires and plugging things in the proper place. None of the worker ponies even tried to help him or get near him, as he sat there, mumbling profanity and fixing the mistakes. After a few minutes, he stood up and walked in front of the soundboard, moving every slider as high as it could go.

“Hey! It’s not supposed to go that high!” called one of the workers, a crimson mare with a straight pink mane.

“Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” said Josh, looking around the setup, “Do you guys have a smoke machine or anything like that?”

Everypony gathered near him just exchanged glances with one another, some choosing to just stare at Josh. He facepalmed at the sight of the confused ponies.

“Is there any way I can get some kind of fog on this stage?” he asked through his frustration.

“I can maybe grab a cloud and use that.” said a green pegasus, waving her hoof around.

“Fine.” said Josh, pointing to the pegasus, “Spread it thin. It has to just roll right off the stage. What about lights? You have any strobes?”

Again, blank stares. He facepalmed once more.

“Okay then.” he growled through his hand, “Can any of you unicorns make a very fast flashing light?”

Several raised their hooves. Josh pointed to three of them.

“One of you stand behind me. The other two need to go to the ends of the stage and stay there. Activate your lights once the music starts. They need to flash for less than a second, got it?”

The three unicorns nodded and took their places. Josh turned back to the turntable. He unplugged it from the soundboard and pulled out his iPod, praying it had enough battery to last for one more song before it died…

*****

“… and I thought that last song was pretty solid, if I do say so myself.”

“Mhm”

Rainbow sat on her haunches, her concentration long gone from having to listen to Vinyl. It was only just now she turned to notice that Josh wasn’t there anymore. As Vinyl continued to babble on, Rainbow floated up to look for the human, but to no avail. How could I lose somepony who’s three feet taller than me?

“Hey,” said Vinyl, taking a break from patting herself on the back and looking around her, “where’s Xploshun?”

As she said his name, a sound like a bomb going off echoed throughout the area, making everypony jump.

“What in Celestia’s name was that?” yelled Rainbow, sticking a hoof in her ear.

“Hey, who’s that on the stage?” she heard somepony call.

Looking up to the stage, she saw a dim light from behind the platform illuminate, casting a silhouette of a tall being.

“Is that Josh?” she said, unable to see properly.

“What’s up, Ponyville?” a voice called through the microphone, making everypony look towards the darkened stage, “You ready for a little XPLOSHUN?!”

As Josh said the last word, the settled fog on the stage dissipated a little as a giant fireball shot up in front of the stage. The light from the fire illuminated his face, which had an excited, almost devilish smile on it.

“It’s time for me to show you ponies what real electronic music is all about!” he shouted, hitting play on his iPod for the song “Lightbringer” by Far Too Loud. In mere seconds, a heavy synth track began, followed by a minor bass drop that shook the stage. Strobe lights flashed behind and to his right and left, making his heart race and a chill run up his spine. The song built more and more, the bass becoming heavier and heavier, exciting him further. He raised his hands in the air, feeling the drop coming, savoring the few moments before it hit.

“BRING THE NOISE!” he screamed, and threw his hands down in perfect time with the drop, a feeling of ecstasy washing through his body as the bass shook the stage.

He felt the music in his very veins, and began dancing and rocking to the beat. He was truly in his element now. Nothing else mattered to him, except the pure waves of pleasure that rocked his very soul. He raised his hands and pointed to the crowd, who was also beginning to lose their minds. Gesturing for more from them, he almost completely lost it once he heard them scream even louder in delight at the performance before their eyes.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he looked to the sky, another drop coming and pushing him further into a realm of nirvana. Eventually, he looked out to the crowd once more, seeing more and more ponies in the square. In the middle of it all, he saw a rainbow pegasus rocking and going crazy, completely lost in the music, the strobe lights playing off her mane, making it almost glow. With one final low rumble of the bass, after what seemed like an eternity, the song came to its end. Josh broke out of its euphoric trance it put him in and looked to the crowd, smiling.

“And that’s how it’s done!” he yelled one last time into the microphone, before dropping it and simply walking offstage.

“That was so awesome!”

Rainbow flew out of nowhere, grabbing the sweaty human and hugging him tightly. Josh returned the gesture in kind, still coming off the high of both his cocaine and the performance he just finished.

“I sure hope Vinyl took some fuckin' notes on that.” he said, panting and smiling at the rainbow pegasus, “That’s how you do a good show!”

Little did either of them know that Vinyl wasn’t there any more. She had left right after seeing Josh take the stage and begin his performance.