//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Javelin // by McPoodle //------------------------------// Javelin Chapter 5 Twilight Sparkle looked up from a book of cryptology when she heard the knocking upon her door. After confirming that it was, indeed, very late, she cautiously answered it to find a tear-stained Vinyl Scratch. “I thought of something,” she began, trying in vain to sound like she had not just been through the worst night of her life. Twilight looked around. “Um, where’s all your equipment?” “Probably hocked to pay for breach of contract. Well, those pieces that were not bucked into oblivion by the Prince.” “Oh dear!” “I’ve already moved on. Now this idea I had…” “…yes?” “The binary data encoded in the compact discs–could it be used for sampling?” “Sampling? Please, come inside. I don’t think I understand the term as you’re using it.” “Well, imagine dividing a recording up into a large number of very brief instants, and then dicing each moment up by very narrow ranges of frequency…” Ponyville’s early morning was greeted by the sound of a timpani pounding from within the public room of Twilight Sparkle’s library. This was followed by dozens of trumpets, playing a fanfare that should belong at the start of the Equestrian Games, or it would have been if anypony in Equestria had ever heard that particular fanfare before in their lives. Twilight’s friends rushed to the library to find the source of this music, and to their shock they discovered it to be the horn of a beaming Vinyl Scratch. Hovering horizontally above her head like some sort of flattened halo and spinning at a frightful rate was the sports CD. “Wow, you did it!” said Rainbow Dash as the fanfare ended. “Congratulations,” said Fluttershy. “Is it very tiring playing that?” “Not really,…Spike. It isn’t. But…it’s bad on…the…concen…tration.” “Well, now I’m not sure I want to ask,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. On the ground beside her was the completed artificial hand she had spent all night working on. “Track five?” Vinyl asked with a grin. “I think I can handle that.” “Javelin” begins with a flourish of flutes, dancing about, happy but also a bit confused. Beneath emerge the brass and percussion, driving and a bit threatening. After the two forces struggle for a while, the strings break free, soaring high above the rest of the orchestra like a hatchling bird that has just discovered what it is to fly. That moment took Twilight’s breath away–it was the most hopeful music she had ever heard in her life. Rainbow Dash was out the door as soon as the buoyant theme first stated itself, and before the song’s nine minutes were up, her javelin had flown triumphantly past the second-story window. “Did you see? Did you see?” she asked excitedly a few moments later. “Yes, we saw, Rainbow,” the others assured her. Unseen by the others, Vinyl Scratch allowed the compact disc to spin down, and then carefully levitated it back into its case. Then she sat down heavily on the floor and finally allowed the monumentally-complex spell to similarly wind its way down in her mind. “Very good sound quality compared with the phonograph,” she noted to nobody in particular, “but I think the Ancients were exaggerating slightly.” “You know,” Twilight told the group once they had all had their turn congratulating the first pony javelin-thrower of all time, “Vinyl tells me that new compact discs could be manufactured relatively cheaply. And because of the optical nature of the reading mechanism plus the gyroscopic effect of the rapid rotation, a machine built to play CDs could be small and sturdy enough to carry around with you wherever you go.” “A personal music player?” asked Rarity. “And unlike a radio, you play exactly what you want to hear, when you want to hear it.” “Is that what I think it is?” Rarity asked Vinyl, remembering the DJ’s account of the strange visitor three nights earlier. “An ‘unusual business proposition’? Indeed it is, only I didn’t think I would be the one making it! Twilight and I are going to be rich!” “Vinyl, I didn’t help you out because I wanted to make any money off of it!” “Nonsense!” Vinyl replied. “I’ll absorb all the risk, of course, but you still deserve a share of the profits. I’ll split what I make with you, 30 % for me, 70 % for you.” Twilight did a double-take. “What?” “Well, you did all the computational work, so it’s only fair.” “And you did all the creative work! Plus you’re the one who will have to turn the spell into a machine, and I know from experience that is never easy.” Vinyl grinned mischievously. “So you’re taking me up on my offer?” “I’ll have to think about it.” Rarity stepped in. “Twilight, we know how guilty you feel about receiving that monthly stipend from Princess Celestia to stay here. Here’s your chance for a real salary.” Twilight made up her mind. “Well…alright. But if it’s 30/70, you’re getting the 70.” “You won’t regret this, partner!” DJ Pon-3 exclaimed, hugging her tight. A second later, Vinyl’s more-cautious nature re-asserted itself, and she quickly stepped away. “Um…sorry about that.” “Ooh, what are you going to name it?” asked Pinkie Pie, jumping between them. “I think Personal Music Player would be a good name,” Fluttershy suggested. “Or perhaps Cantering Music Player, to advertise the fact that you can take it on the go with you.” Rarity shook her head. “I’m afraid that neither of those will do. Common names are very hard to defend in copyright court. You need something that people will remember, and will remember came from you.” “Is that why so many of your dresses are named after you?” Rainbow Dash asked with a grin. “Well…it’s either that or come up with some kind of memorable nonsense name.” Pinkie put one hoof to the side of her head and thought intently. “How about, the Cantering Soundarooni? Or the Gallopadoompa? Or the Trottman?” “I like the sound of that last one,” said Vinyl, nodding. “The Trottman it is, then!” Pinkie proclaimed. “What’s a ‘man’, anyway?” asked Applejack. “Oh, a ‘man’ is what you lose when you have to start over in a video game. You always start with three mans.” “Start over in a what?” Vinyl sighed. “Perhaps we’re getting ahead of ourselves. I still have to get financial backing.” “I for one don’t think you’ll have any trouble finding investors,” Applejack said with a grin. “I’m sure my Aunt Orange would be interested.” Vinyl groaned and sat back down again. “Your Aunt Orange was at the party last night. She’s the last pony I’d want to approach for money!” “Yes, she told me all about your little run-in with the Prince.” Vinyl groaned again, louder. Applejack grinned slyly. “It’s too bad you missed the punch line.” “Punch line?” “Yes, in the middle of the Prince’s rampage he tore your acoustical tiles off of the photograph of his pole vault, and in the process removed half of his own image, revealing the original background of the photo beneath.” “So it was a fraud!” Dash exclaimed. “Aunt Orange led the crowd in an old-fashioned tar and feathering session, and most of them chased that stuffed shirt all the way back to Canterlot!” Vinyl Scratch laughed herself hoarse.