• Published 2nd Dec 2012
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Xenophilia: Further tales. - TheQuietMan

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38: Heart and soul, they both know. (MMC)

A/N: Yes, it’s a Magical Mystery Cure chapter. For those of you who aren't fond of the ‘Vinyl Scratch stuck in Bon Bon’s life’ episodes... well, there’s always next time.

Heart and soul, they both know.
Chapter published 10th October 2015.
***************

Bon Bon was not having a good day.

Heck, she hadn’t even been having a good week.

With a barely contained curse word - or three - she tossed yet another scorched saucepan into the already overwhelmed sink. The burnt mess coating pan number five - or was it six - was stuck fast to the sides, an acrid smelling glob of absolute ickyness, rapidly hardening into something more like an ugly brown rock than the gaily coloured confectionery that it was meant to have become.

In a fit of pique Bon Bon kicked a discarded whisk across the room - the utensil bouncing from hanging pot to dangling pan with a pair of loud ‘bongs’ before sticking fast to the far wall, held in place with what was supposed to be sugar frosting in baby pink but had instead turned into something more akin to industrial strength tile grout in mottled grey.

“Celestia, dammit. I can’t cook for horseapples,” the thoroughly annoyed unicorn snorted, “but hey, if you want a bathroom retiled, I’m your mare. Aaargh! So mad right now!”

Grabbing a hoofcloth with her magic, Bon Bon used it to wipe her face and neck free(ish) of powdered sugar as she stomped her way out of the kitchen and onto the sales floor of Bon Bon’s Bon-Bons. The time when she'd have to reopen the store for the afternoon was fast approaching and in the last two hours she hadn’t managed to make a single sellable item.

Not one candy.

Not one toffee.

Not a single, solitary, lonely little jelly bean.

Not.

One.

Thing!

Well, that wasn’t strictly true. Technically she’d made a huge mess of the kitchen, a couple of piles of yuck that she was sure she should be wearing a hazchem suit to handle safely, three unexpected fires, two small explosions, and a depressingly large empty space in her ingredient stores. And, after all that, she’d been left with nothing that she could sell for money... cold hard cash... filthy bits... phat stacks of cheddar. Well not without being prosecuted under the public safety act of 1199AC anyway - subsections 14C, D, E and F especially.

Making her way around the counter, she eyed up the tray of what was supposed to have been jelly beans but had instead turned out to be small, colourful (the only two descriptives for them that could be used in a positive sense) sugar-filled chewy-as-hell teeth-stickying-together blobs of...

Sigh.

Honestly, she had no idea what they were. If it hadn’t been for Time Turner declaring them to have being the ‘most fantastic thing’ he’d ever seen - that boy really was an odd one - and stuffing his saddlebags with as many of the misshapen little lumps as he could carry, then she’d have just thrown the entire batch in the trash and called it a day. She’d always known the guy was a bit touched in the head - but, hay, if she could make a few bits out of him in exchange for a tray of garbage-can-bait then who was she to argue.

As she got closer to the front door - the sign still flipped to ‘closed’, and if she had her way it’d stay like that the rest of the day - she could hear shouting from the square outside. Glad of any excuse not to have to go back into her kitchen of confectional horrors, the unicorn opened the door and stuck her head outside...

...just in time to catch that great oaf, Honeydew, getting her flank handed to her - not once, but twice - by the confectioner’s former housemate.

“Cool!”

By Luna, hadn’t that dumb-flank mare figured out not to mess with the town’s resident human and his trio of merry mares by now.

Dude, what a bucking idiot.

“Go home, Honeydew, you’re drunk!” Bon Bon shouted from the doorway. “Seriously, do yourself a flavour - just toddle off home and lick your wounded pride before you make even more of a foal of yourself. Capeesh?”

After pulling herself up from the undignified heap that Lyra had left her in, Honeydew glared at the accidently-sugar-frosted shop-owner before dusting herself down and slinking off out of sight, all the while trying to make out to anypony within earshot that she was in no way making a strategic retreat.

“Proper idjit” Bon Bon muttered as she watched the lime green mare disappear off around a corner. Turning back to her grandmaster earth pony friend, standing over yonder with two of her herdmates, she meant to give her a friendly wave before heading back into her shop... but instead he got herself her first eyeful of Lero’s outfit.

“By Luna, what is he wearing? Dude looks a proper sight!” she blurted out to a passerby before she’d even realised that her mouth had moved, let alone spoken aloud. “Looks like somepony’s eaten twenty pounds of yesterday’s jelly beans then thrown up all over him. Maybe that’s what had set Honeydew off? Don’t get me wrong - having the fashion sense of a colour-blind cave troll hardly warrants a physical attack... but maaaare, that’s nasty.”

While she was pondering what-on-Equestria could have possessed the boy to be seen in public in such a state - maybe he’d lost a bet? It was about the best excuse she could come up so far - the Cutie Mark Crusaders appeared as if from nowhere. It was her own fault, really... she'd had the sweet shop’s front door open for more than sixty seconds now so they probably figured that made it fair game to flash mob her sweet ass.

Luckily the terrible trio didn’t hang around too long - just a quick chat about their plans for the afternoon before they sped off across town, all three happily assured that yes, the store would be open when they got back and no, BonBon was highly unlikely to have sold out of that stuff that was supposed to be taffy but most certainly wasn’t. Heck, she was having a hard time even giving it away - especially after yesterday lunchtime when it had tried to eat Cranky’s hairpiece - and if the three of them wanted it then they were welcome to take as much as they could carry. To be honest, BonBon didn’t even want to know what they had planned for it, but she was fairly sure that they weren’t going to eat it. Not even they could be that crazy.

Could they?

Pretty soon the three little hooligans had hopped back into their cart and powered off into the distance. They were good kids. A little rambunctious at times, yeah, but who hadn’t been at their age? Well, the boring kids maybe, but BonBon sure hadn’t been one of those. Back in her teenage years, when she’d first moved to Ponyville from the big bad city, she might have been a bit worried that the quaint little country town would have nothing to offer a city girl like her. But then she’d met Lyra - fellow thrill seeker, prankster extraordinaire, and all-round cool cat - and the two of them had hit it off like a house on fire. There’d never a dull moment when the two of them had been together... heck, they even still had the matching restraining orders to prove it.

But, was it me that lived in Canterlot, or Lyra?

Dude, that whole period’s a bit hazy.

Most of it was just one crazy sugar rush after another.

He he, yep - good times.

Either way, they’d made quite the pair, the two of them. Looking back, they’d been just what the other had needed, and had somehow managed to keep each other out of as much trouble as they’d ever managed to get into it.

Well, almost

Catching sight of herself reflected in her shop’s windows, BonBon was pulled out of her reverie by quite what a state she was looking.

Oh shoot, I’m a mess.

And she wasn’t wrong - she did look a mess. Her mane was a state, her coat was covered in patches of icing sugar, big smears of food colouring, and globs of escaped... well, Luna only knew what. Somehow she’d even managed to get a pair of black smears over one of her cutie marks, covering up her three colourfully wrapped sweets with what looked more like a large, smudged number eleven.

Taking a longer look at herself in the makeshift mirror, the confectioner levitated a hoof-towel from inside the store and tried using it smarten herself up a bit. It was while she was trying to clean some of the gunk from her mane that she noticed somepony else reflected in the window - this somepony being a light-gray earth pony mare with a short, spiky black and grey mane.

Whoah! That mare’s gorgeous, and those sunglasses are so cool.

Holla! Is she checking me out?

Subtlety - and if there was one thing Bon Bon was known for it was being subtle... not - she turned her body slightly, making out that she was having a tinsy bit of trouble wiping her coat clean, all the while watching her admirer’s reflection in the window. Sure enough, as BonBon moved her flank from side to side, so the mare’s gaze followed it.

Oh yeah! She’s totally checking me out. Bonnie, ya still got it goin’ on.

Hey, she’s the DJ from Canterlot. DJ Tav1 or something, ain’t she? Sweet!

Bon Bon may have been having a bad day so far but having a successful - and seriously hot - city mare checking her out was doing wonders for her mood. Yeah, it might be shallow, and probably nothing would come of it, but it still made her feel good and right now she’d take all the ‘feel good’ she could get.

That’s it girl, take a good look.

Baby, you could spin my platters any day.

Draping her towel across her shoulders, the unicorn gave her rump a seductive little wiggle - totally accidently of course - as she watched a reflection of a blonde maned pegasus walk up to the stunner of a earth pony and say something that Bon Bon couldn't quite hear. Whatever it was, it obviously had the earth pony all flustered, turning her reflection a shade of pink that the confectioner thought was totally cute.

As the pegasi wandered away, the hottest earth pony in town trailing in her wake, Bon Bon had a feeling they’d be seeing each other again. That DJ did look reeeally familiar, and not just in a ‘Hey, I saw you a few days back over at the Apple place’ way either.

Yeah, I’ll be seeing you again, honey. You can count on that.

Oh well, break’s over, back to work.

As she made to step back into the store, she took one last look at herself in the window. Even with the her towel thrown over her neck, the odd spike here and there of two tone blue mane sticking out of her headband, she was looking pretty fine.

As she took in the sight, she couldn’t help but think that the towel around her neck looked a little like a pair of oversized headphones. The thought brought back an old memory, something vague.

For a moment she could swear that she heard a bassline thumping away in the back of her brain... a packed nightclub, in Canterlot maybe? Perhaps that’s where she’d seen that DJ before, back when she and Lyra used to check out the big city’s nightlife. Yeah, that must have been it.

But, just a quickly as it had arrived, the memory was gone, and the only thumping in the unicorn’s head was a swiftly forming headache. Wandering back into her store, she locked the front door behind her before grabbing a bright yellow hazmat suit and gas mask from a hook behind the counter. It always paid to be safe and, with what she’d been cooking up so far this morning, this was the kinda day for being doubly safe.

**********************************

Bon Bon hadn’t had the store open for the afternoon for very long when Lero dropped into see her.

Looking up from where she was busily wiping the area around the cash register clean, Bon Bon gave the human - or, more truthfully, that travesty of a suit that he was still wearing - a good once over with a critical, and unimpressed, eye.

Ahhh man, it’s even worse up close.

“What can I get you? Sorry, babe, no sex. I just cleaned the counter.”

As Lero leant on the counter in question, laying an arm across the polished wood with a casual air, BonBon was starting to wonder what exactly it was she’d done to warrant him inflicting this kind of punishment on her poor ol’ eyeballs.

“Though if it gets you out of that goddess-awful outfit I might make an exception.”

“What, you no likey?” Lero stood away from the counter and opened the front of the jacket, displaying the full nausea-inducing splendor of the waistcoat underneath in all its mis-matched glory, though BonBon really wished he hadn’t. “Jackie made it especially for me.”

“Yeah, well. Who else would she have made it for?” Covering her eyes with a fore-hoof, the unicorn waved the other one at the human in a semi-jokey ‘go away’ motion. “Sorry, hun, me no likey. What I’d really like is some sunglasses before it gives me a migraine.”

Dropping the ‘dazzled’ act, she went back to cleaning the jars by the till. “Seriously though, what in the sweet, sweet world of Equestria are you wearing it for? You lose a bet or something?”

Lero laughed, letting his jacket fall closed as he leant back on the counter. “Okay, so it’s not exactly DJ’s best work but, hey, it’s the thought that counts, right? I’ll agree though, it’s all bit ‘Sixth Doctor’ for Ponyville, isn’t it?”

“Who?” Bon Bon asked.

“Sixth Doctor.” Lero kinda explained, but not. “Not really my era, the Colin Baker years. My mom thought he was seriously hot. But then, she was a teenager in eighties England, and everything was a bit weird back then, so I guess she had an excuse.”

Doctor what? Colin the Baker who?

Seriously, what’s he on about?

“I was more of an Ecclestone fan myself, but then he was my first Doctor and everyone remembers their first.”

“Seriously, dude,” Bob Bon held up a forehoof in the hope that the human would take a break to breathe, “what the hayseed are you babbling on about?"

Horseapples! He’s still going!

“Still, no one beats the thirteenth Doctor though. Gillian Anderson - now she was sexy! First non-Brit to play the role too. That rustled a few jimmies, let me tell you. And I still can’t believe she was almost fifty when she took the role on. Oh. My. God - she was so hot. I’d have been her companion any day. She had this real mature allure thing going on with her Doctor, didn’t take crap from anyone either, could be a real devious bitch when she needed to be. Just what they needed after Capaldi.”

Taking what Bon Bon thought had to be his first breath since he’d started his little verbal whirlwind, Lero pursed his lips and whistled, launching back into his trip down memory lane before the befuddled pony had even the slightest chance to interject.

“And putting her up against Benedict Cumberbatch as The Master? Now that, my friend, was a stroke of genius. No wonder people thought Gatiss was some kind of god.”

“Are you ever going to shut up?” Bon Bon finally managed to squeeze a word in sideways. It didn't help.

“I mean, some people were worried when he took over from Moffat, but I think he did some great stuff. I still wonder who ended up being the fourteenth Doctor. My money was on Idris Elba, but what with him already being tied up playing James Bond after Daniel Craig gave it up it was a bit of a long shot.

No! Please! No more! I can’t take it.

“Arrrgh, Lero! I have absolutely no idea what you’re saying,” Bon Bon cried, throwing her forehooves into the air. “You're doing it on purpose now, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Lero grinned, “is it working?”

“Well between your yapping and that monstrosity of a suit I’m about to raise the white flag and give you whatever the hay you want as long as you’ll go away and leave my poor beleaguered senses in peace. So, if that’s your plan, then yeah, well done. You win.”

“Result!” Lero clapped his hands together. “Got any pop rocks?”

Bon Bon visibly deflated, tossing her cleaning cloth to one side before ducking down under the counter.

“Pop Rocks... don’t talk to me about Pop Rocks. You know what it’s usually like with the Pop Rocks - they’ve got so popular with unicorns recently that I’ve had to start keeping them under the counter so the kids don’t try ‘sampling’ them. For a while I thought they’d be about the only thing that went right for me this week... but then this happened.”

Reappearing from back under the counter, Bon Bon veeeery carefully placed a large, glass dish on the worksurface. Nestled within the dish were a whole crop of small, translucent crystals shards, all tinted a striking sky blue that seemed to glow as the daylight danced its way through their crystalline structure.

Lero whistled in appreciation. “Now that,” he said, ”is a lovely shade of blue.”

“Ain't it just,” the unicorn agreed, slapping the human’s hand with a forehoof as he went to pick up a small piece. “Carefull though, they’re a bit... unstable.“

From the edge of the dish, a tiny crystal floated into the air, held aloft in the unicorn’s magic.

“Watch this.”

With a quick flick of her horn, Bon Bon tossed the tiny shard onto the floor, where it exploded with an equally tiny ‘crack’.

“These were about the only decent thing I’ve managed to make the last couple’a days. When they first came out they were so pure that just one tiny piece would make your teeth ache. I mean, dude, these things were practically addictive. Trouble was that after a few hours of cooling they all went blue and started exploding whenever they got hit, or dropped... or even looked at funny.” One of the unicorn’s hooves rubbed at her jaw. “By Luna’s teats, don’t try chewing them. I darn near lost three teeth before I managed to wean myself off of them.”

Another, slightly larger, piece floated out of the dish and into the air in front of Lero. He had to admit, it really was a lovely shade of light sky blue.

“Could be worse though, “ Bon Bon added, “ you do not want to see my reject bin.”

Tossing the floating piece though the open door into the kitchen, it landed in a large metal trash can with a decent sized ‘crack’, the detonation setting off other pieces of previously rejected confectionery. After a few seconds the bin started jumping and jiving its way around the kitchen as a chain reaction of explosions created a cacophony of snaps, crackles and pops, not unlike a string of firecrackers tossed into an echo chamber.

With a sigh Bon Bon leant against the counter’s edge, propping her chin up with her forehooves.

“Dude, I have sooo lost my mojo. This is like the week from Tartarus so far. My pantry’s about out of ingredients, my noodle’s about out of ideas, and my air vents are about out of cash. Another week of this and I am gonna be well and truly buggered.”

“Sorry?” Lero looked up from the piece of crystal that he was debating whether to lick or not, “you’re hiding what in your where?”

“What? No, nothing. Never mind that.” Bon Bon grabbed her cloth and starting giving her counter another really good clean. “Look, it’s just that if I can’t cook up something pretty darn special pretty darn quick then I’m gonna be out of business by the end of the month.”

“Oh, sorry,” Lero thought better of the piece of Pop Rock in his fingers and very carefully placed it back in its dish. “Anything I can do to help? I could come back by later to help out if you like. Mom always said cooking was was as much a science as an art, and I was pretty good at chemistry in high-school. Cooking up candy couldn’t be that different, right? I could ask Lyra too, she’s been aaaaall about the sweet stuff this week.“

To say that this was the best offer Bon Bon had received all week would not have been an understatement.

“Oh, by Celestia’s mane, yes, yes, please. I could really do with the help.”

Leaning over the counter, the unicorn grabbed one of Lero’s hands with her forehooves and gave his fingers a little wiggle.

“I’ll take all the help I can get, and a helping hoof, or hand, would be perfect right about now. Could I ask just one more little favour though?”

“Of course. Ask away”

“Could you leave the suit at home? I’m worried it’ll curdle the milk.”

*********************************

It was a few hours later before Lero returned to the store, thankfully sans suit. Twist had arrived for her afternoon shop-filly shift so Bon Bon was free to hustle the human into the kitchen out back of the shop.

“Hey! Hands!”

Lero looked up from the tray of... well, he wasn’t sure what it was that Bon Bon had cooling on the counter top. It was... brown, was about the best he could say about it. If he had to make a call on it he’d have guessed that someone had tried to make butterscotch with nothing but a cement mixer, a flame-thrower, and a ‘can do’ attitude..

Holding his hands up in front of him like some kind of high-respected astrophysicist who’d just spotted an incoming badass, he backed away from the table.

“Whoa, I got ’em up. Don’t shoot.”

“Wash ‘em, fool!” Bon Bon laughed as Lero snapped off a mock salute.

“Yes, Mom.“

A quick wash up at the kitchen sink with soap and water had Lero’s mitts fresh as a daisy - the flower, not the easily startled bloom-seller - in just a few moments.

“Geez, you're starting to sound like Lyra. Dunno what’s gotten into her lately but she’s gone on a real cleaning bender the last few days. My house has never been so shiny.”

Hands all clean, Lero grabbed a cloth to dry himself off.

“Shame she couldn’t come with me. She sends her apologies by the way, but she was prebooked this afternoon.”

“It’s cool. I know she’s been busy this week, “ Bon Bon checked over Lero’s hands with a critical eye before sending him back to the sink for a second round, “and she’s right: cleanliness is next to goddessliness. Get right under those nails, Doctor Handyberg. We’ve gotta be clean enough to operate”

Finally approved for action, Lero picked up the tray of... brown that he’d been inspecting just moments before.

“So, hey, what’s this? Looks like a tray of milk tea gone solid.”

He gave it an experimental sniff - though not without trepidation.

“Smells a bit like tea, too... maybe... if you hold it at this angle, scrunch up your nose just-so, and only use your left nostril.”

“Oh, haha, Mister Funnybones.“ The tray was snatched from his hands, the pale pink of the unicorn’s magic banging the metal against a nearby counter as she tried to shake its creator cursed contents loose. “Was trying for caramels, I think, or it might have been butterscotch toffee. Look, I dunno.”

The solid sheet of brown finally shattered and fell into a lump pile on the counter.

“Heck, I’m not even sure what I was trying to make, though sure-as-sugar I can tell you it weren’t this.”

Crouched down to bring his eye-level in line with the countertop, Lero gingerly poked a small piece of the brown. Satisfied it wasn’t doing anything worrying - like vibrating, ticking or slowly counting down to his demise - he picked a small piece up and brought it closer to his face for an experimental sniff.

“Dude,” Bon Bon shuddered, “you’re a braver mare than I.”

“Well, it smells okay, “Lero stated, still giving the lump the evil-eye.

“No offense, hun, but we both know your nose is-aah, nah, bro, don’t do that!

“Actually,” Lero stated, rolling the piece around his mouth, “It doesn’t taste that bad.”

“You crappin’ me, boy?” Bon Bon asked, picking up a small piece herself. “If I find out you’re joshing me just so I’ll try a bit and then have it taste like a dead dog’s butthole, I will hang you up by your spuds. Just so you know.”

Holding her piece of brown out towards the human, what she really hadn't expected was that her new assistant would pluck it from her hoof and stuff it in her mouth before she could utter another word. The shock alone was enough to make her tongue wrap around the foreign object, preparing to flick the so-called ‘confection’ across the room before her taste buds could tell her just how minging it was.

Unfortunately it was too late, the oddly coloured lump had made contact and the signals flying from her buds to her brain were faster than the signals from her brain to her tongue, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by waves of taste and-

“Holy Moly, this is actually pretty good!” she cried, rolling the piece around her mouth as she let the competing flavours soak her senses.

“Yeah, “ Lero agreed, “once it gets all warm and wet it’s actually quite nice, still quite hard and pokey though.”

Bon-Bon tried not to laugh at the unfortunately phrased comment, the stifled giggle forcing the sweet’s sweet smell up into her nose.

“Smells better, too,” she commented,

“You know,” Lero let his slowly dissolving lump click against the back of his teeth, “I think you might have just made Equestria’s first ever batch of Werther's Originals.”

“Werther’s whats?”

“‘Werther’s Originals.’ Sucky sweets from back home. And that’s ‘sucky’ in a good way.”

Bon Bon had no idea what Lero was on about, but, to be honest, these sweets weren’t as bad as she’d feared. Maybe she could even sell a few, make back a bit of cash. Perhaps some kind of advertising spin would help - perhaps she could even get some of the townsfolk to try them, get some word of mouth out there. Might need to try bribing them at first, though.

The ‘ding’ of the shop door bell caught her attention, but unfortunately it wasn't a customer, just Twist brushing her floor-sweepings out of the front door.

As her young cousin (once removed) bustled her way around the store, Bon Bon watched her through the kitchen hatch as she had an idea. Not the best idea she’d ever had, mind, but an idea none the less - and right now she was willing to try anything.

Kids. Cute Kids. Stick ‘em on an advert and ponies’ll buy anything.

Yeah, that’d do it. Maybe rope Gramma Tang in as well. Make out it was something grannies gave the little ‘uns when they’d been good. The kids’d think it was great ‘cos grannie was giving them a treat, and the old dears’d think it was something the kiddies loved. Play the two off against each other and ding, profit!

Kerching, baby.

Hang on, is she my Gramma, or Twist’s?

Nah, don’t feel like mine, must be the kid’s.

Pushing the question of how best to shift a whole heap of questionable merchandise onto the unsuspecting public - and whose nanna Gramma Tang actually was - Bon Bon ushered her bipedal partner in crime into the back of the kitchen. They had cooking to do and, by Luna, with Lero’s - hopefully - mad chemistry skills they were going to cook like they'd never cooked before.

Possibly.

Maybe.

Look, right now she’d settle for a batch of decent jelly beans and a tray of peanut brittle that wouldn’t lead to expensive dental treatment. Was that too much to ask?

Leaning back out of the doorway, she snagged her hazmat suit with her magic and whisked it into the kitchen behind her, just in case.

******************

Bon Bon was having a really good afternoon. Finally!

Trays of slowly cooling confections crowded the countertops, while all three of her ovens were stuffed to the gills with yet more tasty treats just waiting for their time to shine.

Cranking a clockwork kitchen timer ‘round to seventeen minutes exactly, she set it down on the window ledge between two of its already active brethren.

Taking a deep breath, she took in the smells wafting all around. Sugar, spice, everything nice - and not a single gag inducing wiff of badly burnt sugar or run-away chemical reactions to be found

To her left sat a tray or cinder-toffee, every single lump browned to golden perfection - half of them coated in a generous layer of milk chocolate. She hadn't been sure about the combination at first but Lero had insisted and, by Luna, she was glad she’d agreed to try it - the rich milky sweetness of the chocolate coating complementing the crunchy, slightly bitter honeycomb core perfectly. Oh yes, she was saved!

To her right sat a large bowl of something Lero was calling ‘Milk Duds’. Again, she’d not been too sure about covering her misshapen lumps of reject caramel in milk chocolate, but once the human had figured out what the enrobing machine did and how to work it he’d been so pleased with himself that he’d probably have enrobed her in chocolate if she’d stayed still too long.

After all he’s done for me today, if I was into stallions, I’d probably have let him.

Heck, still might.

Actually, why do I have so many earth pony utensils in here, anyway?

Right in front of her was another tray, full of these little, long, skinny wafer biscuits all also covered in chocolate - no surprise, that man was a chocolate-covering machine once he got going - and stuck together in pairs. Lero said they were called ‘Kit Cats’, she had no idea why - there was no way she’d let any cats in here, all shedding everywhere and forever licking their own bits! Blurgh.

And then there was these things, these little balls of solid chocolate that they’d thrown in a dragée pan and covered in a brightly coloured candy shell. She’d had no idea what an ‘Emm and Emm” was, but they were fantastic, and so simple. How had no pony ever thought of doing this before? Oh, yes - she was saved, saved. saved.

With nothing left to do now but wait for the next oven-load of goodies to be ready, Bon Bon finally had a few moments to relax. Leaning against the wall she let her plot slide to the floor, letting out a breath that seemed to take with it all of the worries and concerns that had been building up inside her all week.

Closing her eyes she let her mind clear, clearing her brain of everything but the trio of timers - all happily ticking and tocking and ticking and tocking. Three sets of mechanical heartbeats were all she could hear, banging away between themselves at one hundred and eighty beats per minute.

On the other side of the kitchen, Lero - taking the chance to grab himself a glass of water and a quick sit down - idly started drumming his fingers on the base of an empty, upturned saucepan left drying next to the sink.

Without thinking too much about it, Bon Bon lifted a wooden spoon with her magic, tapping it against a nearby glass jar, her head nodding along in time.

Putting down his glass, still drumming away with one hand, Lero picked up a small, half filled jar of hazelnuts, shaking it to the rhythm building up in the room, its regular ‘ssh ssh ssh’ sliding across the room between the drum beats.

Getting to her hooves, Bon Bon searched the room for more utensils she could bang, clang, ding, or even dong. Pretty soon the entire kitchen was full to the brim with the sounds of the pair’s impromptu jam session.

Lero had found a pallet knife and was ‘twonging’ it on the end of a counter like a school-filly with a ruler, while Bon Bon’s magic was bashing on pots and pans and swinging jars of jelly beans around like maracas while both of them kicked out at cupboard doors, ingredient bins, and anything else unfortunate enough to get within kicking distance.

In less than a minute the’d built themselves up a nice little rhythm, both of them moving from improvised instrument to improvised instrument. Spoons against jugs, shaking big jars then little then big again, working up and down the pans, trash cans and cupboard doors thumping in time - ‘ssh ssh’, ‘ding ding’, ‘bang ding-da-ding bang bang’, Through it all the timers kept time, the steady beat that threaded through it all.

At the far end of the kitchen, the door to the shop floor inched open, Twist’s young face poking into the room, herself and several of the customers trying to figure out what on Equestria was going on back there - what with all this rhythmical banging and crashing echoing all around the place and not a sniff of the music of harmony anywhere to be found..

Lero had found rolling pin and was banging it against some of the bigger pans, Bon Bon’s magic bouncing wooden spoons off of the smaller pans all around him. The mare herself had found that running the tines of a fork along a box grater made this marvelous distorted ‘prong’ noise that she just loved, especially when mixed with the thunderish rumbles coming from her hind leg kicking the garbage can behind her, the last of the pop rocks adding the occasional pièce de résistance to the mix.

Neither of them knew who had spotted it first, but spotted it they had. A large, huge, massive cauldron sitting in the corner, the one only used for Nightmare Night. Bon Bon grinned like a loon - the idea was just too good to resist.

She looked to Lero - yes, he’d spotted it too, surely he knew what they had to do.

He was grinning, nodding - yes, he was in.

Moving over towards the cauldron - the utensils held in her magic still banging and crashing their way around the room - Bon Bon positioned her hind legs just right. She looked to the human, he held his hand out towards her, all five fingers spread. Grinning like a fool, he folded one in towards his palm, a second later he folded down another. Bon Bon knew what was coming next.

3

2

1

Silence reigned around the room as all banging, crashing, dinging, and donging ceased. She didn’t know why, but a single word pushed its way up her throat and out of her mouth, screaming its way around the room as she wound up a hind leg for the most powerful buck she’d ever bucked in her whole darn bucking life.

“DROP!”

A deep, powerful ‘BOOOONG’ rebounded its way around the kitchen. Windows rattled, pans fell from the shelves, glass jars bounced and jerked. The huge, low frequency wave of sound powered its way across the room, tingling their ribcages, vibrating the very air in their lungs.

Winding her hind leg, Bon Bon bucked the cauldron again and again and again. The never ending bass rumble filling the room with sound, overpowering the beat of the saucepan drums, the ‘ssh ssh ssh’ of the jelly bean jars, the rampant ‘tickticktick’ of the kitchen timers, the wobbly ‘twong’ of the pallette knives, the distorted ‘prong’ of the box grater. Again and again she kicked, like her life depended on it.

Outside, all around the sales floor, ponies hopped up and down, customers calling others into the store to listen, watching the performance through the kitchen hatch, Twist holding the door open so everypony could hear.

One of the kitchen timers went off and, with one last ‘BOOOOONG’, the performance came to an end.

Both Lero and Bon Bon were exhausted, sweat dripping from their faces, both breathing heavily. The unicorn reached up, running a hoof through her mane, sweat and powdered sugar leaving it sticking up all over the place.

“So,” she asked between shuddering breaths, “was it good for you, too?”

Behind her, out in the shop proper, ponies burst into applause - hooves stomping and clopping, mouths whistling and shouting - generally just creating a racket. Their appreciation caught Bon Bon unaware - she’d been so caught up in the music that she hadn't even noticed that they were all out there.

She stood, staring, her mouth open, taking in the adoration flowing over her. It felt good, it felt familiar. She wanted more.

Turning, she beamed at Lero.

“Dude, I think we’re in the wrong professio-”

Midword, the unicorn went rigid, immobile. With limbs locked and mouth left hanging open, her eyes glazed over.

In that instant, she was miles away - somewhere else, somewhere not here.

The audience go wild, their voices echoing from the club’s walls as they chant her name, over and over and over and over. The lights dim, the dance floor falling dark, her deck light the only illumination in the room, the light coat of sweat on her sheer white coat making her glow in the otherwise all pervading darkness. The beats fade away, the brief silence holding them all in her thrall. She waits, just a split second more, the timing’s gotta be right - gotta let them want it, gotta let them beg for it. They can feel it - building, boiling, burning from within. The ache, it’s real.

Oh yeah, it’s time...

D R O P !

An unbelievable wave of bass rolled around the room; thundering its way across the crowded floor; crashing its way from wall to wall, ear to ear, ribcage to ribcage. The crowd goes wild, even wilder than before. Hooves hit the floor in unison, hearts and minds and bodies meet, the room shakes with the music, the seismic force of hundreds of bodies, all moving together, all moving to her will. Stage-lights strobe, her audience caught in immobile in fleeting glimpses of movement, life in stop-motion. Horns glow, floor lights pulse, the crowd moves in time, as one huge gestalt entity. She cranks up the bass, even higher, higher, higher. It makes her ribs hurt - but it’s a good hurt, it makes her feel alive.

This is where she belongs - up here, behind the decks, a benevolent queen of sound bringing joy to her loyal and willing subjects. Bringing meaning to living, bringing rapture to the masses.

She didn't just bring the music... she was the music.

She was home.

.

She’s back, back in Canterlot, years ago now. She’s just a filly, at her big brother’s high-school, standing on his back, watching the parade, trying to get a better look.

She’s staring up at the group of dorky looking teenage stallions hoping around on their float. A colt-band, not a particularly good one at that, but they're giving it their all.

There’s a white unicorn stallion in an old military drummer’s uniform - he’s got battle paint across his snout, screaming tunelessly into the crowd, something about how much he loves pretty pink princess ponies, especially the ones with stripy manes.

The beat is loud, she’s engrossed in the sound, in the beat. The beat, the beat, the beat - it surrounds her, fills her, lifts her up. Unicorns all around her are lighting the tips of their horns, hundreds of magical fireflies lighting up the crowd.

She scrunches up her nose, gathering up as much of her magic as she can. The tip of her own horn lights up, pulsing with the beat. She jumps, dances, screams out in time with the music, her mane flipping around her ears as she violently rocks her head back and forth . Her flank feels warm, like it’s on fire, like a thousand hugs from a million fiery bugs.

She looks back, there’s a mark there... her mark. Her mark’s arrived, finally.

She feels so alive, this is her life, and her cutie mark proves it.

But it’s not three wrapped sweets, not Bon Bon’s cutie mark. It’s a barred note..

It’s her mark...

Hers...

Vinyl Scratch's.

Vinyl Scratch, the DJ.

Vinyl Scratch, the best DJ in the whole of Canterlot.

No... Vinyl Scratch, the best DJ in the whole darn world.

Bon Bon... no, Vinyl’s eyes unglazed. She blinked, looking around the kitchen, staring bewildered at all the pots and pans as if seeing them for the first time . She could feel her nose starting to itch. It itched, oh, it itched so bad... and her brain hurt.

Her eyes roamed the room, finally fixating on the human in front of her. Her lips moved, words half forming. She had something to say, she had to say it, she had to push it out.

“I’m not Bon Bon... I’m not her, I never was!”

No, she wasn’t Bon Bon, she’d never taken that name, she was still Vinyl Scratch, but she had another name, yes. No, not Bon Bon... a different name, a bigger name, something a darn sight sexier.

Pon... Pon-eee... Pon-Pa-pon-pon-pon...

No wonder she’d managed to completely stuff everything up all week... she wasn’t a confectioner! The only mixing she knew anything about was on the decks! The only things she should be dropping were waves of sonical bliss. No, she was a DJ...

Pon? Pon what?

No, still not quite right, she wasn’t just a DJ... she was the DJ.

PON3, motttther-bucker! You’d best represent!

She was DJ-PON3!

“Dude! I mean it! I’m really in the wrong profession. I’m DJ-PON3... I shouldn't even be here!”

Her nose was itching soooo bad, the sudden headache knocking her for six as a single drop of blood hit the otherwise spotless tiles beneath her hooves. Without warning she was pulled back into the past. Struggling to remain standing, all she could do was try and hold on for the ride.

Canterlot University, the audio-acoustic labs. Their new musical test-subject was coming in today - some fancy-flanked, and downright expensive - cellist from the philharmonic orchestra. Apparently she was really good, hopefully worth the money. She needed to be - these royal grants didn’t last forever.

The door opened behind her, the hinges making that same old ‘squeak’. Her colleague left the room to greet their guest, help her with setting up her things. Vinyl just needed to finish with these hook-ups.

Grrr, the secondary hi-gain cable was all caught-up again.

There, all done.

Vinyl wiggled her way out from under the desk, got to her hooves, grabbed her *ahem* coffee and clipboard, glancing through the mixing room’s large glass window, catching sight of... her.

By Luna... she was the most amazing mare Vinyl had ever laid eyes on. The elegant gray coat, the gentle curve of her back, the way her long powerful neck is accentuated by the cutest little pinkbowtie ever, the way her long charcoal mane flows along her spine, her fringe brushed delicately over her forehead, the way her eyelashes curl so gently at the tips, the way her carefully maintained eyebrows furrow as she concentrates on tuning her cello.

Oh. My. Goddess... the ankles!

Vinyl’s 'coffee' slipped from her grasp, hitting the mixing desk, sparks flying, spinning, leaving smouldering patches in her coat as the beverage soaked its way into the board. She doesn’t care, doesn’t even notice.

She’s found her, she’s found the one... the mare that will make her life complete. She’s there, right now, right in front of her, nothing between them but a thick sheet of glass.

She’d found her. She’d found her, and nothing else mattered anymore.

She was back, back in the here, back in the now. Back in the kitchen, back in the world, back to being stared at by a confused human...

...and the mare she loved was wandering around out there with some other girl!

“Dude, I gotta go!”

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