//------------------------------// // The Best Musician in The World // Story: Octavia's Rival // by OctaScratchRock //------------------------------// Everyone knows the beloved Octavia Melody and the also beloved Vinyl Scratch. Sure, they may be different, but deep down, they are the best best friends in all of the world. Octavia was preparing her cello for a concert one night. Vinyl sat in the crowd, waiting. At last, Octavia showed herself from the stage, and give a bright, warm smile to all who watched. The audience roared in applause as she played the first notes on her favorite instrument, the cello. Each and every note she played seemed to bring a knowing light to her face, as she had loved the cello ever since she first played one when she was a filly in Great Britain. As a child, life was fun. Or so she thought until she first heard the cello one day. Then, she was more determined than ever to buy and play one. Eventually, her parents decided to buy her one for her birthday one year. And she hadn't stopped playing it since. Vinyl, on the other hand, had a different story. Being raised in the 90's meant that electronic music was gaining massive popularity in her homeland of Japan. Vinyl soon found herself in love with the music and told herself that she'd be a DJ someday. She lived up to her dream, for as soon as she graduated high school and had more free time, she bought herself her first set of turntables. She had come to love her instrument so much, that she was still using the same turntable set she used as a child (but with major improvements done by Vinyl herself). Now, she was the most famous electronic musician in both her homeland and beyond. As Octavia brushed her bow across her cello's strings to create the most beautiful sounds, another musician was preparing herself to play after Octavia finished. He was another cello expert who went by the name of Bright One. Bright One was a very special looking stallion dressed in a black suit with a deep blue necktie. His mane appeared deep brown in color, and his coat appeared as a strong, deep red that almost resembled the color of a rose, only slightly darker. Bright One stepped upon the stage as Octavia had just finished, and began to play his custom-built cello. Unlike Octavia's cello, which was a traditional wooden brown and looked nothing special, Bright One's cello was studded with diamonds along its edges and had a metallic black finish to it. It was clear that Bright One had money to his name. He played his cello seemingly perfectly, perhaps better than Octavia. The audience watched in pure awe as he showed what he was capable of. However, Octavia noticed something quite off about his performance. Octavia had dearly loved the cello for years, and she knew that something about the way Bright was playing seemed wrong. Suddenly, Octavia stood up in her seat. "EVERYBODY, SILENCE!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. Her voice echoed through the theater, and the building became silent. Octavia walked up onto the stage and faced Bright One straight in the face. "What are you doing?" she asked firmly. Everypony in the audience had no idea what was happening. They all stood in silence, not knowing what Octavia was so upset about nor knowing what she wanted. Suddenly, it became clear what Octavia's eardrums were detecting. She found a tiny, hidden handle on the fancy cello which opened up the front of the instrument. Inside was a tape recorder playing the music Bright One had supposedly been playing. The whole audience gasped. The theater's owner stormed into the stage area with a scowl permanent on his face. "What were you thinking, sir!? Were you trying to tarnish our reputation!?" he shouted at Bright. Bright One felt himself sweat and tugged at his collar. "Uh, no. I just wanted to try and make myself a living! I'm not too wealthy, you know!" he said. However, his statement was easily shot down by the quality of his cello's appearance as well as the amount of expensive hair gel he was wearing. Octavia gave a scowl as the theater's owner showed Bright One to the exit. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As Octavia began to exit the theater with Vinyl later in the evening, Vinyl looked to her best friend as they walked along the sidewalks through the city. "Why did you get so harsh with that guy? I mean, I know he was cheating and all, but I mean, everything went nuts!" she asked. "I did the right thing." Octavia insisted. "There's not a single crime a musician can commit worse than cheating." "Well, okay. but I'm pretty sure he's gonna remember that." said Vinyl. The two of them walked a block further before calling a taxi back to their home. Vinyl and Octavia both sat with their expressions blank and emotionless for the entire ride home. Once they arrived, Octavia walked through the front door and sat down on the sofa. Vinyl walked into her bedroom to start writing her latest song. "I need something inspiring." said Vinyl softly to herself. "Something that's based on something real." She grabbed a paper sitting on the other side of her desk and began to brainstorm on lyrics and notes. "It's a Saturday morning, and I wanna make do.." she wrote down on the paper. "There's a supersonic love I'm pushing for you!" Suddenly, Vinyl threw down her writing utensil. "NO!!" she shouted to herself. "That won't do! I want something more original..." "Show me your dreams, show me your might," she wrote. "I've got an express love to hold you tight!" This time, she slammed her head down on the desk. "NO, NO, NO!!!!!" she cried. "C'MON, VINYL! You've come up with smash hits! So come up with one more!!!!!" Suddenly her ears shot upward. She could hear the sound of a clock tower down the street chiming. She looked at the clock on her own wall to see it was 9:30 in the evening. She sighed to herself. "Every day when I try to write something new, I take until I need to go to bed. Why?" she asked herself. "Why do I have to be like this!? My cutie mark tells me I'm supposed to be the master of music! WHY!?" She flopped down on her bed with a nasty look on her face, angry about her losses in originality and songwriting ability. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Octavia had gone to bed long before Vinyl after watching the late TV programs. She was already fast asleep and cuddled up under the covers when suddenly she was awoken by the ear-piercing sound of shattering glass. She shot up to see that her bedroom window was broken open. A figure climbed through the window wielding something shiny. Octavia screamed and grabbed the lamp on her night stand. She held it at the emerging figure, who was now charging at her. She threw the lamp at the attacker, which shattered on contact. Electric sparks bursted everywhere. The momentary light revealed the familiar face of Bright One, wielding a knife in his hoof. "You!" Octavia shouted. "You ruined my career!" shouted Bright One in blind fury. "I was the best musician from my homeland until you came along!" Octavia picked up a metal rod laying in the corner of the room and drew it like a sword. "Leave." she simply said. Bright One charged at her with his knife. The two metal objects clashed and clanged, neither one of them truly winning or losing. But it wasn't long until Octavia suffered a cut to the foreleg, and she fell screaming in pain. At was at this moment that a thought ran through the menacing stallion's head. Should he kill her here or risk letting her live so he could take her to a much more brutal and painful death? Thoughts were racing through his head as he heard Vinyl's footsteps nearing the door to the room, for Vinyl had been awoken by Octavia's scream of pain. Something in Bright One's evil mind told him to take Octavia so he could throw a revengeful death at her as painfully as possible. He picked up Octavia and dragged her out the window as quickly as he had arrived. The door to the room burst open. A horrified Vinyl Scratch's eyes darted around the room for any signs of her best friend. There were none. That is, until she saw the blood stains on the floor from when the lamp had struck Bright One and the smaller stain from when Octavia had been cut. The metal rod she used as a weapon was lying on the floor as if it were dropped. Vinyl was so horrified, she puked on the spot. Once her vomit calmed down, she ran out of the room to dial the police. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The police ended up leaving the scene with no one in hoof cuffs. Vinyl wasn't about to give up, though. She decided to keep searching for any possible evidence. Of course, she had no luck either. She sat down on the sofa and put her hooves up to her head. "What's wrong with me, Celestia, for you to take my best friend away from me!?" she said aloud. "Not being able to come up with a new song isn't a reason to have your best friend stolen from you, is it!?" Suddenly, a vision hit Vinyl. She remembered the day before in which Vinyl had caught Bright One cheating. She also remembered herself saying "He's gonna remember that" on their walk home. Vinyl's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open once she had come to the realization that her best friend had been kidnapped. Vinyl stood up and ran outside as fast as her legs could carry her. She opened their house's garage door to reveal her car; a souped up Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X. She jumped behind the wheel and gunned the engine as she sped off to the music concert hall. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Upon arrival, she questioned everypony she met if they knew anything about where Bright One lived. Finally, she got her answer from the building's owner. She typed the address into her GPS system and sped off to it. Once she arrived, she found herself at a very prestigious mansion. The walls were a light beige color, and the tallest towers of the place reached at least twelve stories high! "Man, this guy's a cash cow." said Vinyl to herself. She drove up to the gateway and gave her car's horn a toot. No answer. Vinyl frowned. She stepped out of her car and tried opening the gate herself. It was locked. She started violently shaking the gate, desperately trying to break its lock. Suddenly, she was greeted by the call of a neighbor mowing his lawn. "What'cha doing out on a hot day like this?" he shouted. "Trying to get into this jerk's place!" she replied firmly. "Well, if you're looking for Bright One, you won't find him there." the neighbor said over the sound of his lawn mower. "He suddenly took off for a big vacation earlier. It was kind of a surprise, since he usually tells EVERYPONY when he's going on vacation weeks in advance. But this time, he just took off." Vinyl knew something was up with this "vacation." "Do you know where he was going?" asked Vinyl. "I think I heard something about Sicily, Italy." said the neighbor. Vinyl jumped behind the wheel of her Lancer Evolution and set off for the airport at full throttle.