//------------------------------//
// Chapter 6-Curtains Fall 
// Story: A Day in the Limelight 
// by Trish Hankins 
//------------------------------//

	In the silence that followed the blast, Octavia and Lyra walked in the room through one of the holes in the wall. Bon Bon trotted up to Lyra and hugged her tightly. "Don't make me worry like that again." Lyra patted Bon Bon's head as the confectioner sobbed into her green mane. Vinyl walked over nonchalantly to Octavia.

"Yeah, so." Vinyl said. She looked intently at the wall for a few seconds, before bear hugging Octavia. "You are the best roommate ever, Octy!"

Octavia seemed to be trying to smile. "Thank you for the compliment Vinyl but, ah, if you keep squeezing my this hard I'll be the best late roommate ever." Vinyl immediately dropped her, and blushed as she accepted Octavia's offered hug. Bon Bon disengaged herself from her own hug and turned to Vinyl.

"What was that beeping?" Bon Bon asked.

Vinyl chuckled. "Oh that. One of the conditions of Octavia moving in with me, actually. She injected a tracking device in my back, so she always knows where to find me."

Bon Bon squinted at the two. "So, does Octavia have one too?"

Octavia and Vinyl looked at each-other, then started laughing. By the time they had settled down, Octavia answered. "You don't seem to understand the purpose of the device. Vinyl knows where to find me at any time anyway, because I actually have a proper schedule." She pronounced the word as /shedyool/. "She on the other hoof, has been known to disappear from time to time, and that just won't do."

"Okay, that makes sense I guess. But what in Princess Celestia is a bass cannon?" Bon Bon asked, and at her words Vinyl beamed and Octavia smirked.

Octavia turned to Vinyl, and said, "Well then, I believe you should explain it considering you did invent it."

The DJ's eyes widened in mock surprise, and answered, "Who, moi? While I may have worked on the technical details, my muse here is the one who gave me the idea. Octy should start."

Octavia sighed and shrugged simultaneously. "Well, if you insist. It was about three months ago, and Vinyl was playing her nonsense," Vinyl started coughing loudly, the word 'dubstep' mixed in with them. "at an intolerable volume again. I asked her if she had a setting that just let her hear her precious 'wubs.'" She looked over at Vinyl, who accepted her cue.

"So I thought to myself: How could I enjoy my beautiful music being blasted on a bass and make sure nopony hears it? The answer came to me in a dream: I turn the sound from a wave into a wave-particle!" Her answer was a room of blank stares. Vinyl rubbed the back of her head. "Okay, some basic science. A wave, like sound, is everywhere in in it's frequency at once. That's why a single wave can be heard by many people. A wave-particle, like light, moves like a wave but is only received at one point. So if I converted my music with unicorn magic, I would be able to listen at full blast and none would be the wiser!"

Lyra cocked her head a little to the side. "So then why does it blast holes through walls? Light doesn't do that."

"Uh," Vinyl said, "I'm still working on the finer details. Right now it's turning the sound into neutrons, not photons like I want. That has the side effect of working like a cannon. So until I fix the flaw, I modified it for weaponry. I added some other normal basses to the side as well, for increased morale and stuff. I'm trying to work out a deal with the diamond dogs, and if it goes through..." Vinyl's eyes seemed to glaze over. "...oh the computer I could buy. "

Octavia rolled her eyes. "You spent months inventing a device that turns sound into massed particles, you are selling said technology for money, and all you can think of is the new gadgets you can buy. Somehow that fits perf—" Out of the darkness of the hole in the wall, a red pole extended fast, going straight through Vinyl's bass cannon.

"No! That's gonna take weeks to rebuild!" Vinyl screamed. The pole suddenly reversed it's motion, retreating back through the wall. Seconds ticked by as the ponies stared at the tear in the wood, terror etched into their faces. Slowly, Sun Wukong walked through the rubble and into the room. His fur was ruffled, his robe was torn, and blood flowed from his ears. But what scared the mares the most was his eyes. There was no thought behind them, only a thick flame of rage. He slowly walked up to Octavia. When he was standing directly in front of her, he reached back his hand. At that second, all the other ponies (who were awake) yelled out. No words were said, just shrieks of emotion. Vinyl stepped in front of the cellist and said, "Don't you touch her!"

The Monkey King's hand was a blur of speed, and before the other mare's eyes could react the two musicians were knocked back through the wall of Town Hall, and across the square. Then Wukong turned again, this time to Lyra. Bon Bon intercepted him, and said, "You are not going to hurt her! I won't let you!" She jumped up, hoof outstretched, as hard as she could, at the monarch. He caught her hoof with his hand, then threw her down at Lyra. When the dust was settled, there was a tear in the floor and the two mares lay in a small crater of dirt.

"You...you monster!" Before Wukong could turn away from his last strike, Derpy rammed into him, flying them both through the hole in the wall and into the Town Square. Derpy stared into the king's eyes with a fire almost as hot as his own burning in her pupils. "You hurt Carrot Top, and Bon Bon, and Octavia, an—" Her rant was stopped with a swift blow to her head, knocking her into the ground.

Sun Wukong looked around him, and yelled out, "I'm just checking to make sure, does anypony else want to sneak attack me before I continue?" Out of the sky above him, a booming voice answered.

"We shall." Before Wukong could look up to investigate, a blast, the color of the night's sky, hit him on the top of his head. The effect was immediate, the immortal king fell to the ground face first. Carrot Top's eyes blinked open now, and she got up shakily to her hooves after breaking her ropes. The six mares shambled over to Wukong's unconscious form, and Princess Luna landed near them.

Bon Bon was the first to speak. "Okay, this is great and everything, but two questions: one, isn't it a little convenient that Carrot Top woke up right now?; and how did Your Highness know to come?"

Carrot Top coughed and answered, "I've actually been awake for a while now. I was hoping I could sneak attack him, but when the time came I barely had enough strength left to break my bonds, not enough to fight."

"And to answer your second question, when Lyra and I retrieved the Bass Cannon from my home, I made a distress call. I used the equipment we use to record our show to send out a quick message asking for somepony to get Princess Celestia to Ponyville, as soon as possible. That's why it took longer than you expected for us to return. I'm not quite sure why it was Princess Luna who showed up though. Not that I'm not grateful for the help Princess!" Octavia quickly added.

Luna let out what seemed to be a chuckle, but several decibels too loud. "Think not of it, subject. Our royal sister is often thought to handle things like this. However, she is sleeping, as the night is mine alone to guard. We were already enjoying the delightful overtures playing on your station when your warning went out." She turned around to the crowd of monkeys staring sadly at their fallen leader. Luna rose up into the sky, her eyes growing with a dark aura. Her voice rang out louder than anypony there had ever heard a pony speak before, "Monkeys! Leave this land now! Go back to your jungles and both not this peaceful town again!" Before she had even finished speaking the monkeys fled as fast as their legs could manage. Luna landed and resumed her normal appearance. She turned to look down at Wukong. "And this villain! The ringleader of the whole affair!"

"No!" Bon Bon shouted. Luna looked at here oddly. "Princess, please do not judge him so harshly! His actions were bad yes, but desperate! His people are in trouble, and he needs to talk with you and Princess Celestia about it soon! Please, Princess, take him to Canterlot and listen to his story! His race's lives hang it the balance!"

Luna looked from Bon Bon to the others. "Do you all feel this way?" Without hesitation, the six ponies nodded as one. "Well, considering your thrilling heroics on this night, my sister and I shall take an audience with him." Her horn glowed a dark blue, and the unconscious ruler levitated onto Luna's back. She flew into the air, and turned back to face her subjects. "Before we depart, we would like to offer a proposition. My sister has her warriors, the Bearers, and they are indeed valiant and noble. But as we have seen tonight they are not always there to 'save the day.' And they are expected and known to the point that fiends now account for them in their schemes. Ponyville, and Equestria, needs a hidden backup. Ponies to stop the darkness during the dark. If you would accept, you six friends would be that group. What do you say?"

The six ponies looked up at their ruler, then at each-other. They were bruised badly, and several undoubtedly had broken bones. Then they looked at the empty cage. In a single voice they answered, "Of course."


It was a day and a half later, Sunday to be precise, when the event occurred. In the intermittent time, the mares shared their hospital room and talked. At around noon of that day, a loud sound came from outside. At the noise, all the ponies stopped talking, and Derpy frowned. Less than a minute later, a brown colt came rushing through the doors, quickly followed by three earth pony mares. His eyes scanned the room then rested on Derpy. "Derpy! You're hurt!" He ran over to her bed. There weren't tears in his eyes, but they definitely weren't dry either. "I'm sorry. I'm so v—"

"No." Derpy looked at him with a perfectly straight face. "No, Doctor. You are not going to blame yourself for this."

"But," The Doctor fumbled, tears moving down his face, "If I had been there, I could have—"

Derpy interrupted him again, steel in her words. "No. I'm not your companion anymore Doctor. The town was under attack and we had to help. If you had been there, maybe a few of us would be in better shape, but that's the past. You weren't there. We were hurt. You need to stop dwelling in the past, excuse the pun." Then she smiled at him.

The Doctor grinned back at her. "Your smiles always were dangerously infectious. I see you've made quite a few more friends."

"Yeah." Derpy turned and looked at the three ponies standing awkwardly, watching the conversation. "Wait, aren't you three the ones who used to run the flower shop?"

The one closest to her spoke up. "Yup. I'm Daisy, and these two are Lily and Rose. You're Derpy Hooves, right? The Doctor mentions you quite often." Derpy blushed. From there it quickly split up into two different conversations.


Carrot Top jumped in. "So, you're a doctor huh? That colt Derpy went off with for, what, a couple days back in 2010?" The Doctor jumped a little, and for the first time noticed Carrot Top sitting in the bed adjacent to Derpy.

"Ah, yes, you must be her friend. Something having to do with carrots, yes? For the record, I'm not 'a doctor,' my name is The Doctor." He reached out with his hoof, and Carrot Top shook it.

Carrot Top grinned tiredly. "Oh, sorry for the mix up. The name is Carrot Top, by the way. Hey, did you know that Derpy sets a place for you every Hearth's Warming Eve?"

Derpy blushed heavily. The Doctor beamed at Derpy. "Is that true?" Then his face sank a little. "How many have I missed?"

"Oh, just one. Carrot was embellishing to embarrass me." Derpy tried to shoot her friend a glare, but the result left a far different reaction then she intended. Carrot burst out laughing. "But you know who did stop by?" The Doctor's blank look answered her. "Blueblood!"

The Doctor laughed jovially. "Really? What was he even doing in Ponyville?"

Derpy rolled her eyes. "He said he was just passing by on the way to his girlfriend's house. Which, I guess is true, but he still stayed for over an hour." Derpy looked at The Doctor with a small frown. "Y'know Doctor, just because I'm not your companion anymore doesn't mean you're not my friend. You can stop by whenever you want. I'd like it if you did. Amethyst asks about you occasionally, and Dinky does at least once a week."

The odd colt thought about it for a moment, then said with a tiny smile, "Of course. I'll show up every once in a while. I have missed you."

Derpy looked at that moment as if she didn't have a care in the world. Then one of her eyes came to rest on the window her bed was next to. "Hay! Wait a second Doctor, did you park the TARDIS right outside?" He nodded an affirmative. She narrowed her eyes at him. "How did you know to come here? Are you telling me the paper warned you about my injury, but not the immanent danger to Ponyville?"

He burst into speech, elongating his first word, "Yeeeeeees, well, that's the funny part. You see, I dropped into Ponyville for a refuel about a week from now, and you passed by where we had parked, your wing in a cast. When I asked about it, you told me to come to this exact time and I'd understand, and now I do! Now, all that needs to happen is you need to remember that in a week you'll see me, and you need to tell me to travel to the Ponyville hospital at 2pm a week ago." Derpy nodded sagely, while Carrot Top just looked confused.


While all that was going on, Octavia struck up a different conversation. "You, you're all traveling with this doctor fellow, right?"

Daisy nodded. "That's a good way to put it. Derpy was one of his traveling companions before us, but we don't really know why she left."

Lyra cocked her head at them. "When you say, 'travel', what do you mean? How do you get around? Where do you go?"

Rose smirked and said, "Well, that's the thing, the question isn't so much 'Where?' as it i—" before she could continue Lily covered her mouth with her hoof.

Impassively, Lily said, "I'm sorry, but we can't discuss how or where we travel. Maybe if you get wrapped up in one of our escapades we can, but for now you're going to have to stay in the dark."

Vinyl rolled her eyes. "Where did you learn to talk, Spider-Mare comics? Does your great power come with great responsibility?" the DJ mocked.

Without a single change in her facial experssion, Lily said, "No. I prefer the Scarlet Scarab personally." Bon Bon jumped in.

"You'll have to excuse Vinyl. She's just a little peeved about the hospital taking her sunglasses. She even tried the, 'They're prescription I swear!' trick." The corners of Lily's mouth turned up ever so slightly.

"Despots..." Vinyl muttered.

Octavia decided to move the conversation along. "So how did you three end up, uh, 'traveling' with this doctor fellow?"	

Daisy smiled and said, "Oh, it wasn't too big a thing. He was in town dealing with some, uh, sick ponies. We ran into him, and decided to help him with his, uh, 'curing.' Afterwards he invited us to go with him, and we accepted. Not much of a story really."

Octavia was about to speak when the doors burst open, again. This time is was the Bearers (and Spike), Twilight Sparkle in front. "I'm sorry everypony, we just heard what happened, and—" She stopped as she saw The Doctor talking with Derpy. "Doctor? What are you doing here?"

The Doctor turned and said, "Why Ms. Sparkle! What a surprise seeing you here!" After she gave him an odd look, he stammered out, "w, w, wait! This has nothing to do with me! I just found out my friend here was hurt in the altercation, and came to visit her!"

Twilight nodded, then turned back to the others. Rainbow flew over to Derpy's bed. "Crud, I'm sorry Derpy. We were off partying, and you were here doing our job for us."

Derpy opened her mouth to reply, but Lyra cut her off. "Sorry Rainbow Dash, but that's not true. As Derpy told this doctor colt earlier, what's past is past. You were all enjoying a vacation you rightly deserved. You can't blame yourselves for this any more than he can."

"B, but..." Fluttershy said, "We're supposed to deal with s, scary things like this. You shouldn't have had to do that."

"No." Octavia said. "Twilight, you said in your speech that there are no heroes," Rainbow Dash mouthed to Applejack, "Somepony actually listened to that thing?" and Applejack struggled not to laugh. "and that what you all have done was just what needed to be done. Well, the same is true for us. We were able to help, and we did. That is all."

"She's right girls!" Pinkie Pie said. "Let's face it, we weren't the protagonists this time around! So what? This still calls for a PARTY!" She pulled her trusty party cannon from behind her back, but Rarity grabbed it away from her.

"Pinkie, they're resting right now, and need to stay in bed. You can throw them a soiree once they've healed." Pinkie Pie sighed exaggeratedly, then pushed her cannon into the hallway while grumbling to herself.

"Actually Twilight, could I ask a favor?" Bon Bon asked suddenly.

Twilight smiled brightly. "Of course. After what you all did, it's the least I can do."

"Could I borrow Spike to write and send a letter to somepony?"

"Uh," she said as she thought. "Sure. The only problem is that he can only really send letters to Princess Celestia right now."

Bon Bon gave a weak smile. "Oh, that'll be fine." Twilight's horn glowed as she summoned a quill, an ink pot, and a scroll. She then levitated those to Spike. He dipped the quill in ink, then stood poised to start writing. He looked at Bon Bon expectantly. "Oh, now is when I start? Okay, here I go..."


Dear Princess Luna,

Um, hi there. This is Bon Bon. I know you probably don't remember me, but I'm that earth pony with the candy cutie mark who helped with the monkey problem. Anyway, I thought this ragtag group of ours could send you letters occasionally, to tell you what's gone on and stuff. Anyway...wow I am rambling here. The point! The point is that I learned something important over that crazy adventure, though I guess I already knew parts of it. Anyway, you should never blow up at somepony when you're stressed. Wait, I don't mean you, I mean me. I shouldn't blow up at ponies when I'm stressed. I should try venting that frustration in another way, one that doesn't hurt other pony's feelings. And if I do hurt somepony like that, I shouldn't try and ignore them. The problem won't solve itself. I have to own up to my behavior, and apologize. Who knows, maybe I'll get another friend out of it. I think that about raps this up.

Your, uh, I don't know, citizen?
Bon Bon Sweets

P.S. The Doctor said to say hi.


((Authors Notes: I am finally done with my first story! Wow, this was an experience! Some quick things:

1. This story takes place between seasons 2 and 3 of MLP.
2. A ton of stuff changed between the original script and the final product. I think pretty much all of them were good ones.
3. I need prereaders and/or editors for my next two stories. Please private message me if you want to help.
4. If my science seems off on the bass cannon, either you don't know that much physics, or I don't know as much as I think I do. The latter is looking more likely. (If you're wondering where the neutrons go, they turn back to sound in a couple seconds. It's a side effect of how much energy it takes to pull it off, even for that long.)

Well, see you guys in a while with the sequel, "The Zeppos"))