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// Chapter 11 - Cosmic Rocker! 
// Story: When Stars Come Out to Play 
// by Chicago Ted 
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For once, Mercury had to slow down – not because of fatigue, no. The Sun’s starlight was starting to fade from her view, and consequently she had to avoid bumping into unseen objects.
Partly why she had to skid to a halt suddenly – she started to run into a large mass of rocks. “Oh, right, the other Belt,” she told herself. “Well, this one goes around much slower. I just hope the fragment’s not actually in here.”
Remembering the Sun’s words from earlier, she carefully (though by no means slowly) slipped through the cracks in the rows of rocks here and there. Once she reached the other side, she took off into the darkness, seeking her friend Pluto.
Several minutes later, the Sun and the other girls showed up. “Here’s the Kuiper Belt, y’all,” she said. “This is more for Milky Way’s benefit, but in case anyone else doesn’t remember, it’s a lot thicker than the Asteroid Belt. Follow my lead!” Slowly, she slipped through the cracks and spaces in the Kuiper Belt.
Which came first, Twilight pondered, the Sea or the Belt? She hopped down from Milky Way’s shoulder. “After you,” she told her.
“Stay put here,” Jupiter told her pets. She turned to Twilight. “You sure you want to meet Pluto? I hear she can be pretty. . . loud.”
Twilight waved her hoof. “Nah, I can handle it.” She turned to check on where the Sun was. She was still crossing over to the other side, with Milky Way and now Venus, Saturn, and Uranus following. “This could be a while.” She sat on her haunches and waited for the Sun to finish crossing.
Which she did a few minutes later. “That’s my cue!” Twilight said. She lit her horn and cast a teleportation spell, instantly reappearing at the Sun’s side – using her glow as a beacon.
The Sun just chuckled. “Gotta say, you never cease to amaze me, little pony,” she said. “Why don’t you use that disappearing act of yours to go back home?”
“I’ve tried that,” Twilight answered. She looked down at her hooves. “It never worked here. . . .”
“Oh, come now,” the Sun said, “that’s no reason to give up right now. We’re so close to saving the Universe now – and once that’s done, we’ll find you a way home. And that’s a promise.”
Twilight looked up to her. “Seriously?” she said. “You mean it?” Not sure what Milky Way has in mind, or indeed if she does have anything in mind. . . .
The Sun nodded – right as Milky Way climbed out of the Kuiper Belt. “You’ve done a great deal to help us, probably more than the rest of us. Reckon we all owe you.”
“If you say so.” Twilight hopped back onto Milky Way’s shoulder. This is really giving me a workout – all in a summer break, too! “How much further is Pluto from here?” She peered through the space beyond – and saw it was still somewhat littered with rocks. I’d be surprised if Pluto’s visited more often, she thought.
“Still a bit ways off,” the Sun answered. “She’s by far the furthest away from my star – and frankly, she prefers the darkness.”
Is that so? “What keeps her from going insane?” Twilight asked.
“Probably the music she composes, I reckon” the Sun guessed. “Not as good as my singing, naw – but it’s definitely got its audience.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. Of course the star would be so self-centered. “Jupiter says it’s pretty loud, too,” she followed up. “As loud as yours, perhaps?”
The Sun laughed and shook her head. “Not by a long shot,” she replied.
Phew! she thought. At least I won’t go deaf –
“She’s even louder than that.”
. . . oh, joy. “Guess we’re not that close after all.”
“You thought I was loud?” Saturn asked Twilight through her device – what was it called again? “Even I know when to turn it down.”
As she said this, Twilight felt some pulsing vibrations in the frogs of her hooves. Wow, that soon? She even noticed the rocks vibrating as well, though it was hard to tell with how fast they were going. “We’re not even that close, are we?” she asked Saturn.
“We’re still quite a ways off,” Saturn replied.
The Moon skated up to Twilight. “If you would like,” she said, “I can provide an aid to deafen her.”
Twilight’s eyes lit up. That’s perfect! “Yes!” she said. “I’d like that, please.”
“If you don’t mind too much, Moon,” Milky Way added, “I could use something like that too.”
The others apparently didn’t mind Pluto’s music too much, judging by their silence. “Very well,” the Moon said. She cleared her throat:

Hark! you hear the sounds all swell
Loud! the dark one’s voice doth yell
Now! her vocal impact's quell’d,
And you can listen without harm.

Twilight blinked. Nothing’s changed. I can still hear their skates just fine. “Did it work?” she asked the Moon.
“Yeah,” Milky Way added, “I’m not sure if that did anything.”
“It shall in due time,” the Moon answered. “Hasten! She awaits.” I hope she’s right. . . .
A few minutes later, she found the apparent stage, situated upon a rather small planet, where Pluto was performing – and apparent she wasn’t alone. “Which one of them’s Pluto?” Twilight asked.
“The one with black hair and guitar,” the Sun replied. “On the drums, that’s Eris, and Ceres is playing bass.”
Twilight had to squint to look. Indeed, as she could eventually see, playing a guitar with a skull-shaped body was a black-haired and very pale girl. Seemed the skull wasn’t just part of Pluto’s band – it was her personal emblem, much like how the other girls had ones of their own.
On the drums was apparently Eris, who, despite being in the back, was even easier to spot than Pluto, due to her unkempt red hair, her green bomber jacket, her atom symbol – what’s up with that? – and her generally chaotic, hot-headed disposition. She would speed up or slow down her beat without warning, though Pluto and Ceres were able to adapt smoothly, flawlessly.
And Ceres was. . . she was all but unremarkable. Even if ‘unremarkable’  is a remark unto itself, Twilight thought. She had a lot of earthy tones to her appearance, and didn’t even have her own symbol. So I guess having one of those is optional. But what would hers be? Twilight pondered. Probably a leaf or something, if only to match her colors. But I’m sure that’s for her to decide.
Twilight then realized that the Moon’s spell was indeed working – she could still feel the bass vibration in her hooves, but the actual volume was much more tolerable. She turned to face her. “Thank a lot!” she said. “Whatever you did is working great.”
“It was my pleasure,” the Moon replied – and Twilight could actually hear her clearly, well over Pluto’s band. Almost like a volume knob for the real world, she thought. I should teach myself this spell when I get back to Equestria. Or did Star Swirl already write it?
Eventually, the girls pulled up to the crowd. Yep, more aliens, Twilight thought. This system’s just full of ’em. None of them minded the volume of music Pluto and her bandmates made. I wonder what their limits are, Twilight pondered.
Mercury wasn’t hard to find. “There you are!” she greeted them. “You missed out on most of the show.” For the first time in quite a long time, every girl in the system was gathered in one place.
“That works out well for us,” Twilight said.
Mercury put a hand up to her ear. “Say again?”
Well, I guess no spell’s ever perfect. “I said, ‘That’ll work fine for us!’” Twilight shouted. “When do they finish? How soon?”
“Just about now!” And true to Mercury’s word, Pluto loosed one last set of chords on her guitar, then followed up with Eris pounding out a frantic, crashing finale crescendo, then letting the reverberations fade out.
As the alien crowd cheered and cried for an encore, the three band members got off the stage. “Now’s our chance!” Twilight said.
“Honey, I’m not sure if we should bother Pluto right now,” the Sun said. “Last time I tried that, I had ringing in my ears for a good two weeks after. Let’s give her a moment to cool down, okay?”
“Sure, I guess,” Twilight said. She hopped down from Milky Way’s shoulder. Okay, how long is “a moment”? she started wondering. I should just give her five minutes – no, three – and I’ll try knocking. But first I should ask the Sun to clarify, and go from – wait, where’s Mercury?
Mercury was already knocking on the door to the backstage. Leave it to the impatient one to take some initiative. “Mercury, wait!” Twilight called out. She took off in a quick gallop, to try to stop her.
But it was too late. A particularly grouchy Eris had answered the door. “Whaddaya want!?” she barked.
“Hey!” Mercury said. “We’re looking to talk to Pluto.”
Twilight simply hid behind Mercury, her herbivorous nature kicking in. Please don’t see me please don’t see me please don’t see me please don’t see me. . . .
“And who’s your buddy behind you?”
Oh, horsefeathers.
“This is Twilight.” Mercury stepped aside to reveal a cowering Twilight, already taking a couple cautious steps back. “She’s with me, but how she got here is a really long story, which isn’t really important. And speaking of being with me, so are the other girls. C’mon!” Mercury gestured the others to come closer.
Mercury must have dealt with Pluto and Eris quite a few times, Twilight surmised. Must be from her training – running to and fro through the planetary orbits. She was surprised to see Eris’s entire demeanor change when she saw the unicorn.
“Well well,” she told Twilight. She knelt down to meet her face to face. “And what are you doing all the way out here?”
Huh, this isn’t actually so bad, Twilight thought. Nice to see Eris has a soft spot for animals. She should meet Jupiter sometime. “I’m with my friend Milky Way,” she said.
Eris recoiled for a moment.
“We’ve been looking for fragments of a planetoid in this system for a while,” she said. “It’s rather a long story, but everyone else is pitching in, and, well. . . we need your help too.”
Eris shook her head. “Everything’s a long story these days, isn’t it?” she said. “Alright, wait here, I’ll go grab her.” She then shut the door.
The other girls arrived right as Eris disappeared. “That went way better than I expected,” the Sun said. “Reckon I should remember to bring one of Jupiter’s pets with me whenever I go see her.”
“Hey, that’s what I was about to say!” was what Twilight wanted to say at first. But she held her tongue. At least she figured that part out.
“Nuts,” Jupiter said. “But then, it’s hard to protect their hearing from their music. I’ll go with the compassionate option, thank you very much.”
“Well, so much for that, then,” the Sun said.
Unusually, the Moon started making her way to the front of the group. “See something?” Twilight asked her.
“Nay,” she simply replied.
Twilight shrugged. Maybe it’s been a long time since they last met. Who am I to judge?
A moment later, Pluto opened the backstage door. “Moon!” she cried and, seemingly uncharacteristically, pulled the Moon into a warm embrace.
They know each other that well? Then Milky Way decided to voice Twilight’s confusion. “Did I miss something?”
“Nah, not really,” Pluto’s somewhat raspy voice answered. She let go of the Moon and faced Milky Way. “Moon and I, we get along real well. Swap lyrics all the time. She’s like a big sister to me.”
The Moon blushed. “You flatter me,” she said. “But you grant them a voice they would not have.” She turned to Milky Way. “Perhaps you ought to introduce yourselves.” Hopefully this will be the last time.
Milky Way nodded. “I’m Milky Way,” she said, “and this is Twilight Sparkle. We’re looking for – ”
“Yeah yeah, Eris told me,” Pluto interrupted. “Not sure what you need them for – what makes it so important that you’ve dragged literally the rest of the system with you?”
“Oh, uh. . . might’ve forgotten to mention that,” Mercury confessed. “Milky Way, care to take this one?”
She sighed. “See,” Milky Way began, “I accidentally broke apart a planetoid that held Black Hole inside. Now that he’s free, he’s trying to compress the universe back into a singularity.”
“Woah woah woah, back right on up!” Pluto interrupted again. “You let out a supervillain bent on destroying the universe?” She gave Milky Way a blank stare. “I’m sorry, but what were you thinking!?”
“Look, I didn’t know he was in there, okay!?” An exasperated Milky Way took a deep breath to calm down. “Besides, we have almost every piece we need, but we’re still short – and the Sun told me about this part of the system. Think we’ll find it here?”
“Hmm. . . maybe? What do they look like, anyway?” Pluto gestured Milky Way to show her.
Which she did. “Uh-huh,” Pluto commented. “Yeah, in case you haven’t noticed, there’s not a lot of light out here, so you can’t really rely too much on reflection. And did any of you see that minefield on your way out here!?” She pointed outside, to the Kuiper Belt. “See, I keep a clean stage, so there’s no way I’d have something like that lying around. So if anyone else has any ideas, I’m all ears.”
“You mean you’ll help?” Milky Way asked.
“Yeah, when the universe is in danger,” Pluto said. “Now c’mon, humor me – give me something!”
Twilight was already pondering the girls’ next plan of attack. Could we get the Sun to flare her light? she wondered. No, that would be asking too much of even a diva like her. Likewise, the Moon’s orbs are a no-go – and we’d get on Pluto’s bad side with that. Even with Mercury’s speed, she can’t search this entire region in time. C’mon Twilight, don’t fail now – not yourself, not Milky Way. . . not Spike – hold on. She peered inside, past Pluto – and saw a rather spiky guitar on a rack in the corner. And then, she remembered the vibrating rocks from earlier. What if. . . ? Her eyes widened at the revelation. “Hey, can you all wait here for a second?” Twilight asked. “Thanks!” She quickly galloped off, past the crowd, but could still hear Pluto comment “Eris wasn’t kidding, was she? A talking unicorn. . . .”
With her magic, she lit her view and looked for a rock – any rock – but it seemed Pluto also kept a clean orbit as well; she couldn’t find anything at first. She had to keep galloping forward, scanning the cosmos with her arcane-light, quickly darting her eyes this way and that – before finding her prize. “Aha!” She seized the hoof-sized chunk of rock, then, seemingly without fatigue, galloped back to Pluto’s stage.
“Interesting,” Pluto was saying. “So you’re saying she just. . . popped up out of nowhere? And she’s not connected to all this?”
“Yep!” Milky Way replied.
“Uh-uh, I ain’t buying it,” Pluto said. “I just have this gut feeling Black Hole’s got something to do with her being here – ”
“I’ve got it!” Twilight said. She held the rock up in front of the girls.
“A. . . rock?” Pluto asked. “Okay, now you’ve officially lost your mind. Doesn’t even remotely look like what Milky Way has. What’s that going to do for us?”
“Milky Way,” Twilight instructed, “let me borrow a fragment for a second.” Once she had that in her telekinetic grip as well, she turned to Pluto. “Pluto, get on that guitar in the corner.”
“Oh, Ol’ Spiny?” Pluto asked. “Sure, I can set ’im up on an amp real quick. Where are you going with this, Twilight?”
“Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” Using an abaric spell on each of them, Twilight set the pieces floating by themselves, as though they were still adrift in the Kuiper Belt. “Go head, start playing something,” she instructed Pluto.
Pluto has just finished plugging everything in. “You sure something like that won’t break from the sound?” she asked. “I am so not in the mood for cleaning up gravel right now.”
“The rock won’t break,” Twilight insisted. “You have my word.” Besides, I can just catch the pieces in my magic.
“And the fragment?”
“It’s a lot more durable than it looks. I pulled one out of the Sun’s star – not even a scratch on it.”
Mars took a step back.
“Huh, if you say so.” Raising her pick, Pluto seemed to contemplate what to play – then decided on a few random guitar riffs.
Here, Twilight was especially grateful for the Moon’s magic – how do the other girls put up with it? she wondered. Still, she kept an eye on the objects.
As predicted, the rock was vibrating – perhaps even more so, given its much closer proximity. But the fragment truly astounded her – instead of vibrating, it simply spun in the air, rapidly. Twilight couldn’t figure out where its axis of rotation is, but decided it was irrelevant.
Evidently Pluto had noticed as well, since she stopped playing after a while. “Well well,” she said, “guess you were onto something after all.” She set Ol’ Spiny down by the amp. “If it’s anything like that, then you shouldn’t have any problem looking around the belt. Just make sure you have some light with – ”
Pluto was interrupted by Eris coming in. “What’s all that racket for?” she asked. And to the girls, “And what are you doing in here?”
Twilight grabbed the still-rapidly-spinning fragment in her magic, and replaced its magic with inertia. “Got an idea from on our way here,” she explained, handing the fragment back to Milky Way. “Turns out for whatever reason planetoid fragments spin instead of vibrate when you play your music.”
“Oh yeah?” Eris asked. “And how do I believe you?”
“By believing me,” Pluto shot back. “I saw it with my own eyes. Might just work, if you ask me.”
Eris chuckled. “Clever girl. . . .” She turned to leave the room – but then turned back. “We ready in five?”
“So you’re going onstage to help us. . . agitate the rocks?” Twilight asked.
“Sure!” she said. “Anything to help put Black Hole back in his place.”
Huh, that was easy. “We’ll head out to the Belt,” Twilight told her. “Keep playing your music for as long as you can – and when we find the fragment – ” if we find it – “I’ll signal you with a flare.” She tapped her horn with her hoof.
“A fireworks show for the finale, huh?” Pluto laughed. “I like it already!” She started unhooking Ol’ Spiny from the amplifier. “Oh, and on your way there, could you chuck that rock back where you found it?” she asked Twilight. “Don’t exactly want it hanging around here, see.”
“Sure thing.” Twilight grabbed the rock in her telekinetic grasp, and followed the girls as they all poured out of the room and made their way back to the ‘minefield,’ as Pluto aptly described it.
“You guys seriously better spread out!” Neptune said. “Kuiper Belt’s got nothing on the Kuiper Sea, and we don’t know how much is out here!”
Twilight thrust the rock with her magic back into the Belt. That eliminates one. . . not much progress, but it’s something. “I guess we’ll have to separate here,” she told Milky Way.
“Yeah, guess so.” Milky Way pointed in one direction. “I’ll head over here, and you can stay and look here. Good luck!” She then skated off, leaving the unicorn to her own devices. Sure, she thought, what could go wrong?
Twilight glanced behind her, back to Pluto’s stage, where Pluto and her bandmates were getting situated in their usual roles. Pluto grabbed the mic. “And now,” she announced, “here’s another head-splitting, ear-numbing performance, by Pluto and the Dwarf Planets!”
Dwarf planets? Twilight thought. Who made up that term?
“Are you ready!?” Pluto shouted and pointed to the alien crowd.
Their response was a great thundering cheer that even Twilight could hear from the Belt.
“I said, ‘Are you ready!?’” Pluto shouted, even louder this time.
The aliens responded in kind. This time, Twilight thought she noticed the rocks vibrate. Eh, probably not enough to go off of.
“Still can’t hear you!” Pluto thundered one last time.
Oh wait, I think she’s talking to us, Twilight realized. Guess I’ll have to indulge her. “Woo!” Twilight cheered. “Kill it, Pluto!” Is that even right?
One by one, the other girls joined in – even the Moon, who gave a quiet “Huzzah!” in support.
That seemed to satisfy Pluto. “Five, six, seven, eight!” Eris beat out each count on a drum, then exploded in a nearly-cacophonic fury of drumming. Pluto and Ceres kept to Eris’s beat, with Ceres’s deep notes matching Pluto’s lighter cords.
Just as Twilight predicted, all the rocks started vibrating constantly from the music. Time to get to work. She lit her horn and started looking this way and that, but didn’t notice anything spinning. “C’mon now, really?” She moved on to another section of the Belt – and bumped into Milky Way, who apparently had the same idea. “This is just like with the Sun, right Milky Way?” Twilight asked her.
“Yeah,” she responded, “but with Saturn’s volume too!” Guess I won’t have to raise my voice that much here. “You want to check this part, or just passing through?”
“Just passing through, thank you!” Well, that’s one spot given up. . . but that one up ahead isn’t occupied. She kept her horn lit, and started scanning it for anything spinning. Slowly move the light, she reminded herself. Not too fast, or you’ll miss it.
Then the vibrations disappeared suddenly. Killing her horn’s light, Twilight looked back. Is that seriously all they have to offer? Then Eris clapped her drumsticks together, and they started again with another musical number. Alright, fair enough. Where was I? She lit her horn again and kept looking – ultimately finding nothing in this part of the field. She shrugged and moved on.
“Got anything yet?” Venus asked her from another part of the field.
Twilight shook her head. “All these rocks are starting to look like each other,” she complained. “I imagine it’s like that with you, too.”
“Courage!” Venus replied. “We are not out of this yet.” Venus turned away, and so did Twilight. Really wish we had Jupiter’s pets right about now, she thought. Callisto’s good with her eyesight, or so Jupiter says.
On and on they went, each girl (and pony) searching myriad vibrating asteroids, finding nothing of course, while the metal band in front of them kept playing music to an enthusiastic alien crowd. Twice more they switched songs, but Twilight wasn’t sure – they kept blending one into the other. Kinda like what Saturn does.
Ugh, this is taking forever, she thought. And I thought the Kuiper Sea was difficult. “Anyone else have any luck?” an exhausted Twilight shouted out.
“Nope, not here!” Mercury responded. “Or here. . . or here. . . or here!” She seemed to be searching at a breakneck pace.
Twilight rolled her eyes. I’ll bet my cutie mark she actually found it, but missed it because she’s looking too fast, she thought. While Mercury was busy rushing through the field, the unicorn lit her horn and retraced Mercury’s steps.
A few moments later, she hit upon her prize – there, spinning in the vacuum from the band’s pulsing rhythm, was the final fragment. At last! With her magic, she plucked it from the empty space and applied some inertia to it.
“She wanted an explosive finale?” she asked herself. “Then she’ll have one!” She let loose with a large pyrotechnic spell – which gave Pluto and the Dwarf Planets cause to slam out a crashing impromptu finale. Everyone cheered – whether it was for the music, or a search well done.
“I think we’d better head back!” the Sun called out.
“Couldn’t agree more!” Twilight led the charge back to the backstage area, even knocking on the door once they got there. Eris answered the door, and let them in without a word.
The one composing song in drear unslung her guitar and hung it up on a rack on the wall. “Good work out there,” she told Eris and Ceres. “And you guys, too,” she added to the others. “I guess that means you’ve got everything to put Black Hole away – right?”
“Let me check.” Once Milky Way showed her all the other fragments, Twilight started reassembling the sphere in free space with her magic. It was starting to look very much complete – then she noticed a single hole in the surface. She sighed, and stopped her magic, dropping the fragments onto the floor. “We’re still one piece short. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, mon cœur,” said Venus. She knelt down to scoop up the fragments. “Where else in the system would these fragments land?” When nobody answered, she turned to Milky Way, handing them back to her. “Are you absolutely certain you saw every piece come through here, to this system?”
“You can forget about us going back out there,” Pluto said. “My fingers are about to start bleeding from the strings.”
“And that’s to say nothing about the other Belt,” Jupiter added. “But then, in our search, we managed to pick that one clean – right?”
“I sure hope so,” Uranus said, “because we’re out of time. Look!” She pointed out a window behind the stage, to the cosmos beyond the system.
By this time, Black Hole’s vortex had absorbed the entire Universe up to their system, and had just made its appearance at the front door – Pluto’s planet, in this case.
“No. Freaking. Way.” Pluto stood up, jaw dropped. “And all of us are right in its path!” She turned to Twilight. “We don’t have time to look for another piece of that planetoid – he’s right there, baring down on us. If we’re going to stop him, we do it now, or we do it not at all!”
“Then let’s hop to it!” But before Mercury could disappear out the door in her typical fashion, Twilight’s magical grip grabbed her by her sweatshirt and pulled her back inside.
“No,” Twilight told her. “We’re not letting you go without a plan. And right now, we don’t have one.”
“Better make one quick,” Pluto said. “Got any ideas?”
All this time, Mars had been squinting closely at Black Hole’s vortex. She thought she could see a shadowy figure orbiting it on something – but the vortex’s light-absorbing qualities made it hard to tell. “I think I see Black Hole himself,” she told the others. “And he’s standing on something, but I can’t be sure.”
Twilight took a look out as well – and noted that a tall, slender, and malformed being was standing on a jagged-shaped chunk of concave rock. “Mars is right,” she announced – “Black Hole’s definitely standing on something.”
Uranus chuckled. “Give me a lever, a fulcrum, and a place to stand. . . .”
Does she mean. . . ? Unbidding, Twilight grabbed the fragments from Milky Way and rapidly assembled the planetoid in her magic – then carefully compared the shape of the hole to the shape of Black Hole’s platform. Then she gasped. “Yes! That’s it!” she said. “Black Hole himself has the missing piece!” That should make our job a lot easier!
“Well, la-dee-da.” Pluto cracked her knuckles. “I’m looking to square up right now. Anyone else ready to kick some cosmological butt?”
The others nodded in agreement – Twilight rather enthusiastically. Let’s put this journey to rest at last, and get me home.
“Let’s go!”