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// The Birth of Equestrian Heavy Metal 
// Story: Raine Lionheart Presents... My Little One-Shots 
// by Raine_Lionheart 
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Black Minos formed in the back alley salt bars of a minor Trottingham steel town a few moons after the return of Princess Luna. The quartet had been moved by the conflicts of dark versus light and were compelled to write music as dark and forbidding as possible. With their first single, "Lunatic Dance", they singlehoofedly began the first foray into Equestrian Heavy Metal.

Their lead singer, a pegasus who went by the alias Fuzzy Stageborne, bore a cutie mark depicting an iron mask and bridle,  whose eye holes burned firey orange. His onstage antics were the thing of legends in the pop music world. He would crush whole salt bricks beneath his hoof and lick up lines of it. With some clever stagecraft (and a little zebra alchemical magic) he would whip up a flask of green slime and spray it over the front rows. And of course, there was that incident with the bat pony... who was recovering well enough, thank you very much.

By the time Black Minos had released their second album, tensions within the band led to the ejection of Stageborne from the group. This was amidst the New Wave of Equestrian Heavy Metal (or as it was affectionately nicknamed, NWOEHM) led by the likes of Iron Mare, Motörhoof, Thunderclaw (a Griffin Metal band), Princess of Pain and of course, Maretallica.

On the western coast of Equestria, from the city of Vanhoover came trudging the first breed of extreme Equestrian Heavy metal - Coltcrusher. With a vocal style inspired by the very depths of Tartaurus itself; guitars that sounded like the gnashing of dragons' teeth; and apocalyptic drums, this group delivered a brutal and shocking spectacle which inspired a small legion of musicians to continue pushing the boundaries as far as they possibly could.

And among those enthralled by it all was just about the last unicorn anyone would associate with such uncouth, unrefined music.

But then, Rarity lived to buck conventional thinking.