//------------------------------// // Ch 18 // Story: Fractured Soul // by JollyRogue //------------------------------// There was a growing, scratchy heat that coursed throughout my body. It started soon after Pinkie started to drag me along with her. The burning feeling in question was actually caused by my body's being dragged on the ground. Pinkie had somehow managed to hog tie me with a rope. The pink mare pulled me by the coarse ropes as we made our way to our undisclosed location, and I think she purposefully made me hit every rock on the way there. "Pinkie will you stop dragging me!” I pleaded, “My side feels like they're on fire!" Pinkie stopped and said. "Okie dokie lokie!" She then released the rope. My momentum caused me to slide until I abruptly stopped next to her. "Were the ropes entirely necessary? I would have gone with you, if you just asked!" I said to Pinkie, who untied the ropes wrapped around my hooves. "My bad. Anyways looks like we're here!" I could hardly tell if she was being sarcastic or not... I sat up and winced at the pain that came from the simple action. I rubbed my metal hoof against the sore spot that was my back. After a few seconds of this, I stood up and looked around where we were. I noticed a small wooden sign and squinted to see it through the darkness. The sign said "Sugar Cube Corner" "Did you really just drag me all the way to the place I was heading?" I turned my to face Pinkie. "Yup!" Pinkie exclaimed with a wide eyed smile. My knees nearly buckled as I caught sight of her smile. It glowed in the ever growing night, and her eye's seemed to sparkle. Why did she always do this to me. I had felt relatively normal the entire day, but now, being in her presence, I felt powerless. It wasn't like I didn't enjoy it, as a matter of fact I enjoyed this. I guess this was love. "Pinkie there has been something I've been wanting to say t..." I stopped mid sentence. Something had knocked into me. I looked down and saw a child writhing on the floor. He was a chubby little gray colt. His dark brown hair seemed to be almost as messy as mine. I was about to scold him for running into me, when I noticed he was crying. "Hey are you alright?" The little colt looked at me, tears still falling. "I"m..." Before he could say another word, he forced his eye's shut and got up from the ground. Without looking, he ran in the opposite direction. "Should we go after him?" I asked, turning back towards Pinkie. "No, his sister will help him." Pinkie said, I hope she does. Whatever the problem was, he needed someone to comfort him. "Now come on let's get inside!" "Sure Pinkie." A soft smile played on my lips. Pinkie walked up and opened the door to Sugar Cube Corner. She turned and gestured me inside. I walked up to the door and crossed the threshold. The inside of the sweet shop was pitch dark. There was an ominous presence in the air. "Pinkie is there a reason I feel like I'm about to be lynched." "Oh that's silly. Why would we lynch you at..." Pinkie paused for a second as the lights came on. "your own party!" My eye's focused, the normally colorful bakery was even more colorful. Streamers and balloons of all shapes and sizes hung throughout the shop. A banner that said "Welcome to Ponyville/Crocodile adoption party!" Hung from the ceiling. Ponies that Pinkie had introduced me to the day before stood around the room. All of them smiling and saying the same thing, "Surprise!" My immediate reaction was to jump back. When I landed, I slipped on the threshold. I then fell to the side and hit my head on the door frame. My vision blurred as the pain coursed through my head. My ears rang, I felt something touch my shoulder. At the touch I try to stand up, slowly but surely. As I got up, the ringing in my ears stopped, and my vision cleared a little. I noticed that the thing that had touched my shoulder was Pinkie's hoof. I looked at her face, and saw a look of concern in her eye's. "Sorry about that." I said sheepishly. "I guess that's no way to start a party." Pinkie smiled slightly. "No it's not." She said quietly to me. She then turned her back to me, and looked at the concerned crowd. "Okay ponies! Nothing to see here. Let's just move back to the party!" At that, the music started to play, and the party goers started to walk away from the scene I had caused. Pinkie waited for the crowd to disperse before she turned back to me. "Are you sure you're okay?" Pinkie asked. "Of course I am." My neck jerked a few times to the right, involuntarily. "Okay then! I'm going to be in the kitchen making food for the party, so go have some fun!" "I was hoping I would get to spend some time with you." "We get to hang out all the time. Now go and have some fun!" Pinkie said pushing me away from her. I put up no force as Pinkie pushed me. As much as I wanted to be with her, she had thrown this party for me. I wouldn't want to waste it or anything. I scoured the different groups of ponies for a pony to talk to. After a minute of looking, I found nopony. Then after a second of comforting myself on how sad and alone I was, I made my way over to a table covered in food, and grabbed a cupcake with white frosting and red sprinkles. Once I had taken a few bites out of it, I heard a voice from behind me say, "Oh hey, it's you!" The voice sounded really familiar. I turned around and nearly dropped my cupcake. There stood the mare that had caused so much panic this afternoon, Vinyl Scratch. "Oh, uh, hi." I said "So what brings you here?" She asked. "It's, uh, my party." "Oh that's cool." God this was awkward. How could she be so nonchalant? "So why are you here?" "Pinkie hired me as the DJ!" A toothy smile was spread across her face. Figures. "That's cool." "Yeah it is. Hey you wanna check out my equipment?" "Sure why not." Not like I had that much else to do. I took the wrapper off the cupcake and threw the rest of it in my mouth. I looked for the closest trash can and threw the wrapper in it. Then I started to follow Vinyl. We made it past the snack table and walked up to a different table that had two large speakers on either side. Vinyl walked behind the speakers and made her way to the other side of the table. I followed her and noticed a laptop sitting on top of the table. "So that's your equipment?" I asked. "You bet! This baby is my pride and joy. It has a third-generation 2.5GHz core processor, GT 650M - 1.0GB DDR5 video RAM, 500GB serial ATA II 2.5" hard drive with 8MB cache, and a 48.84WH lithium-ion battery. Not to mention the most state of the art music software that a mare can dream of!" Vinyl had a huge smile, and looked like she was in a state of pure bliss. "Uhh..." "Speechless I'm sure. Not many ponies can handle how awesome my little Fidget is!" "You named your laptop?" "Yeah!" Vinyl said, an offended tone in her voice. "Oh okay then. So you play all you music out of the computer?" "Well mostly. I bring some instruments along with me just in case. You want to see what else I brought." "Sure, but what about the music for the party?" "I have my laptop set up on a play list." So Pinkie hired her to play a play list? *sigh* Maybe not the best investment. Vinyl lead me around the table and we proceeded into the back of Sugar Cube Corner. She brought me to a door that was hidden away from any prying eye's. She opened it, walked in, and put her hoof to the wall. The light in the room turned on. "Well? Come on, what are you waiting for?" Vinyl said, a sense urgency in her voice. "Hold on a second Miss needy." I proceeded to follow her into the room. I had never been in this room. It was fairly small. It looked like it was used as an extra storage or even a small office. Pinkie seemed to use it as storage. Sacks of flour and sugar leaned against one wall, a red couch sat against the other wall, instruments were strewn about the floor, a weird looking box was in the middle of the room. "So why is all of your stuff in the back of the store?" I asked. "Pinkie let me store some stuff here for the party tonight." Well that did make some sense. "So what's in the box?" I asked Vinyl, who was standing by the box in the center of the room "Nothing special, just my turn tables!" Vinyl yelled, before she brought her hoof down on the box. Which somehow caused it to open up. What I first thought were the sides of the box, unfolded, and swiveled around. After a minute of complicated flips and turns, the box transformed into a table with two large circles and an array of switches, levers, and buttons. My mouth hung open, I was gobsmacked. The once simple box was now a complicated set of tech-no gizmo's. "Umm..." "Speechless again I see. If you thought my laptop was impressive, this baby takes the cake." Vinyl said while lovingly rubbing the turn table. "I had little Gidget crafted by a friend of mine." My mind snapped to attention. "You named it Gidget?" "Yeah, isn't it a great name?" "Sure..." "So what do you want to do now?" Vinyl said, winking at me as she lifted her glasses up to her forehead with a flick of her hoof. I looked around the floor and noticed a violin. Then I gravitated towards it. "Would you mind if I tried playing this?" I said, pointing at the instrument with my metal hoof. Vinyl looked at me with a disappointed face. "Yeah, sure, I guess." I stood up on my hind legs and I nearly lost my balance. After a little will power I regained my balance, and brought the violin up to my neck. After repositioning the violin, I brought the bow up to my neck and glided it across the strings. A soft sound echoed out of the small instrument. I repositioned my hoof on the neck of the violin, and brought the bow across again. After doing this a few times I had gotten the hang of the familiar instrument. "You're not bad with that, are you?" "I guess not." A chuckle in my voice. "I think I can play a song!" "Well give it a try." I let loose a few slow notes from the violin, after getting my tempo down I started to let myself get carried away by the melody. I pulled the the bow back and forth over the strings. Before I knew it I was singing. ♪Yo-hohoho, Yo-hohoho,♪ ♪Yo-hohoho, Yo-hohoho.♪ ♪Yo-hohoho, Yo-hohoho,♪ ♪Yo-hohoho, Yo-hohoho.♪ I paused and continued with the song. I played a few notes before I started to sing again. ♪Binkusu no sake wo, todoke ni yuku yo,♪ ♪Umikaze kimakase namimakase.♪ ♪Shio no mukou de, yuuhi mo sawagu,♪ ♪Sora nya wa wo kaku, tori no uta.♪ Tears had formed in my eye's, but they did not fall. The song had brought a mixed array of emotions. I was both sad and happy. I had no idea where this song came from, but where ever it was, it was somewhere near and dear to my heart. I didn't realize it, but I had stopped playing. I looked up and saw Vinyl looking at me with concern. "Sorry about that..." "Dude that song was..." Vinyl started to walk up towards me. Was my singing bad? "Awesome!" Vinyl said hushed, awe in her voice. "Really?" "Yeah! I mean it's not like it was my kind of music, but still that song was great. You managed to show a great range of emotion, and your voice was good.”She took a pause in her display to look up at me. “In fact I think we should go make some music together." Vinyl fluttered her eye's. "Okay I guess. When do you want to get together to record?" "How about right now?" Vinyl said, stepping closer to me. "Do you have some sort of recording equipment with you?" I asked uncertainly. "Nope" Vinyl then did something I would have never expected. She wrapped a hoof around my head and brought her mouth towards mine.