//------------------------------// // 1 - Heavy Performance // Story: Duet in the Dust // by David Silver //------------------------------// Octavia walked at a sedate pace, an island of calm in a rising sea of chaos. This was not her place. The ponies around her excitedly chatted, danced, drank, and lived as hard as they could. She was happy savoring life, rather than gulping it down as if any moment may be her last... The music crashed against her, another aspect of the chaos, threatening to throw her off-target, but she made her way through it, her eyes on the one that she had come for. She smiled faintly, gazing up towards her roomie and friend, Miss Scratch, stage name DJ-Pon3. She could see Vinyl's hooves moving in sync with the music. Sometimes they would gesture and pump as if she could emphasize the harsh beat of her 'music'. Other times they danced over the round discs that controlled the music, taking direct control of the audible attack on her senses. It was a lot of noise, so far as Octavia was concerned, but it was Vinyl's noise, and that made it tolerable. It wasn't that she was entirely blind to the... appeal... of it. It had its... charm, but it was not appealing to her. She nodded lightly in response to her own thoughts. Let other ponies enjoy it. They lived for the harsh electronic sweeps, the constant thumping bass that beat like a living heart locked in the chest of a pony running for their life. It was music that was hard to ignore, and perhaps that was what drew people to it. They didn't want to be ignored. They didn't want to be forgotten, perhaps. Octavia found her seat at a small table, sliding into the wide-bottomed chair. There was some trace of moisture, perhaps a spilled drink or who knew what. She tried to ignore it. She wasn't there for that. She could see Vinyl making her own moisture, sweat flying when she swept her head in dramatic arcs. Was that part of why she wore goggles, to keep her eyes clear? She doubted that. She just liked the look of them. They were part of the aesthetic, just as Octavia wore her bowtie. Sometimes little touches were important, to emphasize the mood of the music. Octavia felt her subtle smile returning. Those glasses also let her be one of the few ponies intimately aware of the true colors of those eyes. The music suddenly grew quiet. It was still there, faintly, as if Vinyl has turned the volume down to 1/10. Octavia could feel tension building in the room suddenly. Everyone was waiting. A shout went out, "Drop it!" "Drop!" came a second cry. "Do it!" insisted another. Vinyl did not seem bothered by their calls, nodding her head in time to the quiet music before she made a sudden pull with her hooves, triggering the music to return. Octavia cringed as the intense music washed over her ears, back with vengeance in its electronic heart. However much it hurt in her ears, her attention was not on the music, not then. A sudden sensation of pressure rolled across her from a different direction than the music. She glanced across to room and her ears fell at what she was looking at. A purple crack was running across the walls, and the air, as if reality itself was breaking. Two thin lines met and the world caught between them fell away to chaotic swirling colors. She was not the only one to notice it. Screams echoed as ponies fled away from the growing break in reality. Octavia was ready to join them, and rose to her hooves so quickly she knocked the table over, though its crash was almost missed in the still deafening music and the riot of ponies fleeing. She would have joined them. Would have, but she saw Vinyl was plying her trade, unaware of what was going on. "Vinyl!" shouted Octavia, shoving her way through the panicked crowd towards her performing friend. "Vinyl, blast it all, look at me!" She did not prefer to raise her voice, but if not at that time, when else would be more fitting? Vinyl seemed entirely unaware of the trouble, working her magic, both literally and figuratively, to keep the music thrumming. It seemed to be actively expanding the disruption, the spiderweb of broken reality spreading across the dance club. Octavia burst free of the crowd, most of it heading in the opposite direction. As they escaped the calamity, she scrambled up the short flight of stairs towards her friend. She and Vinyl were rapidly becoming the only ponies left in the building. "DJ-Pon3!" she tried, hoping the stage name might make a difference, but Vinyl was absorbed in her music, even as it seemed to encourage the growth of whatever terrible effect was reaching towards them. She had no choice. As she reached her friend, she swept out with a hoof, knocking Vinyl's headphones right off of her. "Vinyl!" Vinyl blinked behind her goggles. "Hey, Octy! You did come!" She reached to give Octavia a hug, still unaware of the rifts that had grown to cross the entire room, cutting off their possible escape. Octavia laughed nervously as she was hugged. "Yes, yes, it's nice to see you... Now can we get out of here?" She pointed a quivering hoof at the nearest of the expanding and congealing portals to Celestia-knew-where. Vinyl's headphones returned to her head, glowing with her magic. "Woah..." She looked around quickly before pointing to a small door in the back. "Come on!" She led the way, her music abandoned in favor of a hasty retreat. She jumped down from the stage with a clop of her hooves on the cement floor of the back stage. They ran in a wild gallop, Vinyl's magic grabbing the doorknob ahead of them and wrenching it open. What was beyond the door had them skidding to a halt. Another rift was inside with the same riotous swirl of power. It grew out of the open door immediately as the rift in the room rushed to join it, merging. Octavia stepped back away from what had ceased to be an escape path. "I'm afraid we're... in more trouble than I originally thought, and my estimation had already been quite high." Vinyl threw out a hoof. "Don't worry, Octy. I'll protect you!" Octavia's lip twitched, as if a smile had been considered, but died in birth. The thought was lovely, but how Vinyl could protect either of them seemed suspect at best. She reached out and pulled Vinyl close. "Whatever happens... I'm happy we could go... together at least. It has been a distinct honor and pleasure to make music alongside you." Vinyl pointed into the oncoming disturbances. "Don't be like that! We don't even know for sure if they're dangerous. I mean, they look pretty weird..." Her eyes followed as a rift ran over a chair. The chair was ripped apart and pulled inside the chaos, soon lost to sight. "Well, alright, that doesn't... look friendly. We have two choices. We can sit here and wait to be torn apart like that chair, or..." "Or?" She hiked a brow at Vinyl, wondering what the second plan could even be. "We jump in." Vinyl nodded with certainty. "Maybe we won't get ripped up if we aren't sucked up. I don't see any other options. You?" Octavia took a shuddering breath, looking around. The chaotic energy had crept all around them. "No... No I do not..." Not that the thought made her want to leap into what was likely to be the death of her. Still, other options seemed to be in short supply. "Very well..." "Let's do this." Vinyl took a firm step forward. "On the count of three! One!" The DJ equipment was consumed in a great rending and tearing, bits of electronics sparking wildly as they were all torn asunder. "Two!" The roof groaned as the portals seemed to press against it as if trying to absorb the building itself into the maelstrom. "Three!" She jumped at the nearest portal, her magic holding Octavia and pulling her right along. The noise of destruction was gone, replaced with a swirling rush of what sounded like sand all around them. They were falling, plummeting, but they weren't being ripped apart, so that was a plus. Octavia squinted her eyes, soon forced to close them entirely against the grit that was flying around them as they fell. It was at that moment that she was jealous of her friend's eyewear. Perhaps it did have some utilities. She could hear screaming. Oh, that was her. She closed her mouth, blushing. Screaming was doing her little good. Vinyl was laughing wildly. "I don't know what's happening, but this is kinda cool!" She could see the driving... dirt? No, it wasn't dirt. She reached out a hoof into the stuff and pulled it back, even as it swirled all around the both of them. She peered at her hoof, ash? It was ash. She could feel it clinging in a sooty kind of way. "Vinyl?" called out Octavia, locked in a world of darkness. "Please tell me you're there." "I'm here, Octy." She wrapped a leg around Octavia, pulling her closer. "Don't worry, we'll be f--" She was cut off as she landed in a big pile of that sooty ash. On the positive side, it seemed to absorb the worst of the impact, leaving them sprawled out in the stuff, dizzy, but not terribly injured. "" asked a low, deep, and male voice in a language neither of them understood. "" Octavia sat up first, coughing wildly. Some of the ash had gone into the wrong place, upsetting her insides as she tried to get it out. "" remarked a strange bipedal creature wearing clothes and holding a long spear in its hands. Sounded female. "Hello," she said in perfectly understandable words. "We were here first, pony. Do not interrupt our hunting." She sounded firm about her warning, but Octavia detected a hint of fondness. Did that biped like ponies? "" remarked the deeper, original, voice. "" Octavia looked past the female to a male wielding some strange device meaningfully. She couldn't place what it was though. Whatever it was, she felt certain it was a weapon. The male was significantly taller, with olive-toned skin visible where dirty clothes didn't cover it. She noticed he wore thick goggles, so did the female biped. Vinyl suddenly popped free of the ashes, her magic clearing off her goggles. "Hey! Where are we?" She looked left and right wildly, taking in the situation. The female smiled thinly. "A herd of ponies; I don't see those often, especially so large." "" The male turned and stalked away, leading two others males with him. "" Vinyl looked over at Octavia and back at the female biped. "Uh, are we big for ponies? What are you doing?" Octavia nodded lightly. "We don't mean to interrupt you, but we are..." Her words trailed off as she looked away from the people towards their surroundings. She felt her voice being stolen as she beheld the stretches of ashen terrain. Thin and tough-looking plants desperately clung to life, but most of it was rocks and debris. As if to challenge her original impression, when she stood up, she brushed the ash away to reveal a flower. It was a dash of color in the grey-brown, soft purples with a bit of red in the middle. Octavia's attention slid off of it, looking up towards the sky. There was no sun. It was a dense and unrelenting cloud cover through which only enough light to see by came through. "What manner of place have we found ourselves in?" Vinyl pointed at her friend. "What she asked. This place looks wicked." She emerged from the pile of ash onto the dirty path the others were on. The female nodded at the two confused ponies. "I do not know where you came from, but please, just stay out of the way. I can talk after we have some food to bring back." She tightened her grip and hurried to catch up with the others, but barely got three steps when the ash exploded upwards closer to the central mass of their hunting group. With a horrible screech, a great and serpentine length slid free from the ground below, but it was no snake. Like a great worm, its flat end ringed with grasping tentacles where razor-sharp teeth weren't busy gnashing in preparation for its next meal. "" ordered the tallest, leveling his device at it. It made the sound of an explosion, and blood sprayed from the worm as if it had been struck, but neither of the ponies quite grasped what had happened. Octavia leaned in closer to Vinyl. "By Celestia herself, I would advise running, but I am terrified there could be more of those things, just waiting for a chance at us." Vinyl shook her head. "Don't be like that. Our new friends need our help." "Since when were they our friends?" challenged Octavia with a raised brow. While they talked, the great worm crashed down on the leader. He barely got a grasp on two of its longest teeth, holding it open and preventing himself from being snatched up. Blood ran from his hands where he was cut by those sharp teeth. The rest of the hunting party had surged into action, the reports of their strange devices filling the air where they weren't engaging in melee, jabbing at the worm desperately to get it away from their leader. "Since they started fighting the big worm thing." Vinyl broke into a trot, leaving Octavia as she reached up a hoof and turned her headphones from headphones to speakers even as her magic flipped their muffs to face outwards. She was ready to perform. She reared up onto two hooves even as the worm did the same. She raised a hoof high and brought it down as if slamming down on a guitar, also in sync with the worm's movement as it lunged at a weaker member of the party. Even as the man's scream lifted into the air, Vinyl's voice rang with it. Her voice was deep and, with a little digital assistance, distorted as she launched into her death metal ballad. "Fighting in the ash, survival begins to crash." Though uncertain why, the female they had spoken with stepped in and lunged with her spear, striking true against its thick and scaly hide. She roared in triumph, only adding to Vinyl's song. "Body's twisted in the struggle, Now is not the time to huddle!" The man who bled from where the thing's jaws had found purchase in his side fought on, throwing off the pain like an inconvenient hat. "" Filled with new vigor despite his pain, he fired wildly with his one-handed device, smaller than the other, but it made the same sounds. Vinyl could see from that close that it shot pellets out into the flesh of the worm. "Ribbons of blood flow out freely, Flowing in spurts so thickly!" Octavia approached with wide eyes, darting between the intense battle and her friend, singing her ballad towards it. Was her friend actually helping? She could feel the pulse of the music trying to get into her, urging her to fury, but she didn't want to fight. She rejected the power, but she felt it. What was Vinyl doing? In the temporary reprieve of his people fighting with newfound savagery, the leader moved a hand over his device, speaking words that sounded strange even for them. Floating runes of power gathered around the thing, engraving themselves along its length with some alien power. "" cried the female, her knuckles whitening as she struggled to hold it still with the sharp end of her spear. "" "Dawning of the final strike, climax to end the fight." Vinyl wasn't sure of it, but the meter of the fight felt right. She could see the male readying his clearly enchanted weapon at the worm. The others were holding it still just for him. Something was about to happen, she felt sure. The worm twisted to face the male and reached with lightning speed, grabbing him with several grasping pseudopods and wrenching him up into the air. With a grunt of pain, he crashed into the ground, his shot ruined before it was taken. Vinyl's teeth clenched as she sang on, "Fading embers of the battle, life and death, the line we straddle!" The female biped suddenly swiped with the sharpened end of her spear, cutting into the tender flesh of one of those stretched out grasping tendrils. It didn't sever, but the worm shrieked in intense pain, turning to face her fully. She widened her stance and lowered her spear, ready to receive its attack. The worm lunged for her, graspers spreading out wide to close off her escape avenues. Its teeth were spread wide, revealing the depths of its mouth in a daring move to consume her entirely. A deafening bang sang out across the wastes, louder than any of the others. The worm stiffened and fell, landing at the feet of the woman, its blood flowing freely from its newest wound. The woman gave a powerful cry of victory and brought her spear down on the prone enemy at her feet. "" Rough jabs and loud bangs came in rapid succession, finishing off their vicious foe. The leader approached, his weapon held in one hand at his side. "" The woman frowned at him. "<'It' is a her.>" She smiled, face splattered with blood, at Vinyl. "You were amazing. Please, come with us." Vinyl nodded easily as she flipped her headphone muffs back over and turned the volume down to listening levels. "Yeah, sure. What is he saying anyway? Why doesn't he talk normal?" "" the woman quickly reported, leaving the others to dress their catch as she approached Vinyl. "Once we have it butchered and ready to move, we'll return to the camp and then it'll be time to eat. Are you hungry?" Vinyl leaned to the side, eying what might be dinner. "Uh, can't say I've tried that before." Octavia moved to stand besides Vinyl. "Where are we going, precisely?" The woman glanced at Octavia, then Vinyl. "She was the one invited." She pointed a finger at Vinyl. "As thanks for her help during the fight." Vinyl threw a leg over Octavia, grasping her by the withers. "Where she goes, I go. If she can't go, well, you're down one DJ-Pon3." The leader glanced over at the woman. "" The woman grit her teeth. "" With a nervous little laugh, she switched to a language the ponies knew. "I'm asking if she can come too." Octavia pointed at the woman. "Pardon me, but I am curious. What languages do you think you're using? Precisely, what do you use when you speak with him, and with us?" Vinyl brought a hoof to her face, no longer wrapped around Octavia. "That's a great question." She smiled at the two. "Northen Everglow," she reported, gesturing around at the other bipeds. "It's what most humans speak around here. You are speaking sylvan, but you know that...? You really don't know that. Where are you two from?" A hand came down on her shoulder. The leader had joined them, his sharp eyes looking between the two ponies. "" She jumped with a brief bit of surprise before she recognized whose hand it was. "He says you can come along, both of you. " Octavia inclined her head faintly. "You are quite skilled with both languages, to switch between them without even a pause." Vinyl ambled towards the long corpse, torn open and being hacked into easily-moved pieces. "Wicked... Do you really eat that? Is it good?" She leaned in over the stinky mess, peering into the gorey remains as if answers were hidden within. The leader shook his head. "" His vision suddenly locked on Octavia. "" The woman smiled a little awkwardly. "Miss?" When Octavia seemed to be fully focused on her, she rolled a hand. "We'll need all the help we can get moving this catch back to the camp. Do you mind carrying some of it? We can strap it to your back." "" He turned away even as he talked, moving towards Vinyl. "" He patted her pointed head like a dog that had done well. "" Vinyl accepted the petting without complaint, but Octavia watched it with a more discerning eye. "We are behind in introductions, miss? I am Octavia Melody. She is Vinyl Scratch, stage name DJ-Pon3." She put a hand at her chest. "I am Sandy Fortune, and I feel that's come true today. I only learned this language to speak with ponies, but we rarely get the chance to use it." She leaned in a little. "The leader, Randal, doesn't think highly of the fey races. He won't even come along when we trade with them, but that just gives me more time to speak with them." Octavia felt Sandy's words were truth. But she also felt she was being eyed like a wondrous creature, rather than a person. "I am a pony, not a 'fey'." Her mind swam with old mare's tales of fantastic beings that would fit the title. "As for carrying things... That is not a task... I normally perform, but I can help a little..." She forced a little smile. "I am a performer by trade." Vinyl trotted back to the others. "Oh no!" "What?" Octavia looked over with concern. "You don't have your instrument." Vinyl shook her head. "At least I have my speakers." She tapped at her headphones lightly. "How are you going to show them your amazing music without one of those guitars?" Octavia's expresion deepened into a scowl. "It is a cello, and you know it." "I'm just playing with ya, 'Tavi." She laughed as she turned to face Sandy. "You're Sandy, huh? Nice to meetcha." She thrust out a hoof. Sandy met the hoof with a balled fist, bumping firmly. "Where are you two from? You don't seem local." One of the other hunters, a male, approached with several large bundles of carved meat. He set it down beside Octavia and grabbed some leather straps. "" "What is he saying?" hissed out Octavia, her eyes on the male as he began running the straps around her. "What is he doing?!" Sandy put out her palms quickly. "Easy, easy. He's just attaching your share of the load." Vinyl turned to the carved up beast. "Am I getting a load?" Sandy called out towards the leader, who was shouldering a heavy-looking backpack, "" "" He rolled his shoulder, checking the balance of his burden. "" Vinyl nodded softly. "That sounded like a yes." With a twinkle of magic, she grabbed one of the hunks off the stack, letting it float beside her. "Alright, let's get this meat train rolling!" Octavia took an uncertain step, weighed down with several large slabs. "How can you be so cheerful about this?" As one, the hunting party, plus two ponies, began moving, heading for the hunter's camp.