Art opened Oli’s bedroom door, the sound of the vacuum exploding out as Oli ran it through in straight, even rows. Looking around him, all of his records were put away and pushed into their shelves neatly, the bed they surrounded was made, and the surfaces of his desk, dresser, and bedstand looked dusted and with all of the items on top neatly organized.
Seeing his dad visibly admiring his work, Oli tapped the power button on the vacuum’s base to turn it off, listening in on what he wanted. “Yeah?”
“Oh, I… Having someone over today?”
Oli nodded, looking over the messy bald patches he’d have to get to after vacuuming. “Yeah, I’m having Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Spike over. They want to attend my brainstorming session.”
“Yes, for Ray’s party. Never mind then.”
“What, another guitar sale?”
“Oh, and it’s a big one! A Rickenbacker 325, the same kind Lennon would play.”
Oli leaned in, winded by this news. “No shit? Yeah, that’d make a very nice addition to the collection. Hey, tell you what. I was planning on getting us all pizza for lunch. I’ll be sure to leave you some.”
“Thanks. I’d like to swing in and say hi to your friends too.”
“I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you again.”
Art began to notice the spots Oli still had yet to work on, nodding to see that it was already a vast improvement over the last time he saw his room. “Well… keep up the good work.”
Art quickly slunk back out and closed the door behind him before Oli could say so much as, “Thank you.” Oli shrugged and turned the vacuum back on, wanting to waste no further time.
Oli’s room was empty but nearly spotless. The Harmonium lay open on the bed and open halfway. The windows were partially open to let the moderate breeze from outside in, cooling the space as the sunlight streaming through heat the carpet and comforter where it could touch. A stronger wind suddenly bellowed out of the book, and with it, Oli, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Spike were ejected out from the void between the two open pages. Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie both nimbly landed upon the floor as Pinkie Pie caught Spike on his back.
Spike shook his head, a bit woozy from the awkward landing. “Thanks Pinkie Pie. I owe you one.”
“I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it eventually!” Pinkie Pie confidently exclaimed.
“Alright, let’s get to work!” Rainbow Dash hopped up on Oli’s bed in front of one of his shelves and put her forehooves up on the third row up, marveling at the number he possessed in just that one spot. “Whoa, where’d you get all these?”
“My parents owned most of these,” Oli explained, standing up to the left shelves and looking through the top row. “Once I began learning how to solo out tracks and starting to make money performing my mixes, I continued the collection. Yes, here we go.”
Oli slipped a light-greyish-blue jacket and held the front cover up to himself, recognizing the red tear and band logo above it and the title inside of it as the look of AC/DC’s The Razor’s Edge.
Rainbow Dash hopped up on her hind legs, catching the logo herself. “Aw yeah, going to pop that baby on?”
“Yep, just give me a moment.” Oli knelt before his turntable, prompting the two ponies and Spike to crowd around him.
Gently laying side-A up and sliding the center hole over the spindle, he set it down on the platter and reached for the needle. Once it was off its rest, the record began to spin, and Oli carefully, but excitedly, set the needle down on the record’s edge. Crawling back, the others were led to do the same, ready for the incoming moment for when the room would fill with sound.
With a gentle crackle of the needle entering the grooves, the immediately recognizable riff of Thunderstruck began to bounce across the walls from the speakers, and Rainbow Dash’s ears waggled as she attempted to process Angus Young’s impressive playing. Oli glanced over, savoring every moment of her initial reaction with a wide smile. Her head began to bounce as the chants began to bleed in, the corners of her lips curling in genuine enjoyment. On the first crack of, “thunder” accompanied by the boom of the drums, Rainbow Dash swooned, beginning to giggle over the fact that a song could make her do that.
“Wow,” Spike gasped. “This sounds awesome! Are you planning on using this for one of your songs, Oli?”
The seeds of an idea had already been planted in Oli’s mind the moment the track started, but it was Spike’s urging that already allowed the idea to bloom, and Oli began to silently contemplate the track, much to Spike’s bemusement.
“This is…” Rainbow Dash found her words stuck in her throat from her elation alone. “This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever…” As Malcom Young’s guitar began to play over Angus’s, Rainbow Dash’s face also began to morph into confusion, unable to understand how he could not be excited about a musical miracle such as this. “Oli? Are you even listen–”
“Of course he’s not listening!” Pinkie Pie hissed. “He’s brainstorming!”
Despite the shrill shouts of Brian Johnson’s vocals coming in, Oli began to mouth the words to the first verse of The Black Crowes’ Hot to Handle. As he felt the melodies and meter of the last song blend well into the first, he stopped his singing before shooting back off his bed and began to hammer away at his laptop keyboard.
“Oli.” Rainbow Dash and the other two Equestrians hopped off the bed and stood at both sides of his office chair. “Did you already come up with one?”
“Part of one.” Oli pulled up a file browser window and created a new folder and created a new folder inside that.
Naming the latest folder MIX 1, he searched through another browser window and located his bass, rhythm guitar, and drum tracks for Thunderstruck before dragging them into the MIX 1 folder. As the first files began to copy over, he located his vocal track for Hot to Handle and dragged it in as well. Within another few seconds, all four tracks had copied over. Even with the song still playing overhead, Rainbow Dash and Spike stared at him, nonplussed.
It most certainly wasn’t the most creative display of his intelligence, and Oli felt a pang of guilt hit him. “Sorry guys, this is what most of my day is going to look like. I can’t say I didn’t warn you, but if this isn’t how you all wanted to chill, I don’t mind sending you back.”
“Are you not planning on listening to more music today?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I mean, of course not, but there’s going to be a lot of–”
“Then relax, dude! We’re just a couple of ponies… and a dragon, keeping their friend company while he does some work, and there’s a lot worse kind of work you could be doing.”
Oli smiled and nodded to her, appreciating her solidarity along with Pinkie Pie and Spike’s. “Thanks guys.”
“No problem. Now let me listen to the rest of this song, okay?”
Oli shrugged. “Fair deal. If you want, I can go ahead and call the pizza in while–”
“Yeah, yeah, pizza. Now quiet, I bet a good part’s coming up!”
Oli threw his arms up and scooted out of his chair. As he left the room, Rainbow Dash hopped back onto Oli’s bed and laid down. Meanwhile, both Pinkie Pie and Spike continued to browse through Oli’s shelves at their own comfortable levels. Oli was already dialing his phone as he made his way down the stairs. Reaching the main floor, he began to pace as he awaited an answer on the other line.
“Yes, hi,” he began, “I’d like to place an order for delivery… yes, can I please get three large cheese pizzas, a medium sausage and pe–” The sudden bee-boo of the doorbell felt deafening to Oli as he jolted slightly. “Sorry, yes, sausage and pepperoni, please.”
Oli walked up to the peephole and looked through it, feeling a slight drain in the colors of his face to see Javi gently leaning side to side in a musical rhythm as he waited for either him or his dad to answer the door. Wearing an MCR Black Parade t-shirt, ripped-up jeans, a blue flannel shirt around his waist, checkered Converse shoes, and sporting black hair that reached his upper back, he definitely looked the part of a late 2000’s-rocker.
Oli sighed loudly. “I’m… sorry, I’ll call you right back.”
Hanging up the phone and approaching the door, Oli turned the handle and pulled the door open, standing still inside the doorframe.
“Hey, Javi.” Oli struggled to mask his anxiety with feigned surprise. “What’s going on?”
“Yo, Oli!” Javi already began letting himself inside, and Oli barely withheld a grimace as he stepped back and continued to play the game of “everything’s normal.” “You getting ready for tomorrow night?”
“…Yeah, I was actually just getting started on building my tracklists.”
“Oh, sweet! I actually swung by to see how things were going.” Javi began to head to the stairs.
“Javi, wait!” He stopped with his foot on the first step.
Oli paused, quickly realizing that there was going to be virtually no possible way to hide the Equestrians’ existence from him and allow him to leave on good terms. The awkward silence confused Javi.
“Are you…” Javi struggled to put the pieces together. “…trying to keep your mix a secret?” With AC/DC still blasting from Oli’s bedroom, Javi looked up in that direction to make his upcoming point. “Because it already sounds like it’s going to have AC/DC in it.”
“Alright, listen.” Oli approached Javi, who continued standing in his spot. “I have some other friends over who wanted to be here while I work on my tracklists.”
Javi glanced left and right. “So, it’s not supposed to be a secret?”
“Look, I just made these friends, and they’re…” Oli could already see Javi starting to look impatient once again. “You know what, you’re right, let me just introduce them.
Javi blurted out a laugh as he turned back to the door. “Come on, man, I think I’ve known you long enough to know the kinds of people you hang out with.”
“The thing about these friends of mine, they’re not exactly…”
Javi grabbed the bedroom’s door’s knob, twisted, and gently pushed it open. Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Spike both turned expecting to see Oli come back in, only to spot the unfamiliar Javi instead.
“What…” Javi’s voice was involuntarily hushed as he studied Oli’s new friends’ features, realizing exactly what his friend tried to mean.
“…human,” Oli finally and awkwardly finished.
“So…” Spike glanced between Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, “any idea of when he’s going to start introducing us to the rest of the neighborhood?”
“Hopefully before dinner!” Pinkie Pie chirped.
Javi breathed in through his nose, the only tangible coping mechanism he could think of seeing both the dragon and pony speaking fluent English. “Uh, yeah, no, Oli, can we step out for just…”
Javi lightly grabbed Oli by the arm to herd him away from the door as he began closing it behind him. Oli quickly mouthed out a “sorry” before the door shut, separating the two humans from the Equestrians.
“Yo, Oli…” Javi didn’t seem to sound angry, but there was a noticeable twinge of fear and paranoia in his voice, “…I’m gonna’ need you to tell me where– no, what exactly those things–”
“Javi, Javi, calm down!” Oli gripped Javi by the shoulders to silence him.
“No, not calm down, dude! You literally have a whole-ass pegasus in your room, and…” Javi quickly swung the door open, took another inventory of its occupants, and closed the door again. “…is that a fucking dragon?”
“Yes!” Oli hissed, sensing his friend’s voice raise. “And… I guess I’ll rip this bandaid off too, but there are unicorns as well.”
Javi turned away and ran his fingers through his hair. “Oh, Oli… Does anyone else know about them?”
Oli gently nodded once. “Dad and Jessie…”
“Jessie? You mean– wait…” Javi was about to open the door once again, only to be stopped by Oli’s hand grabbing at his wrist.
“I’ll explain everything to you, man, but before I can, I really need you to slow your roll, because your energy is really reaching crazy levels right now.”
Javi visibly looked more relaxed, though his eyes struggled to calm down with the rest of his body. “Just answer me this… are…” Javi huffed out the rest of the air in his lungs, unable to believe he was going to suggest what he was about to suggest.
“Yeah, they are.” Javi blew another breath out, already unable to trust the notion that the day would stop getting weird any time soon. “Again, I’ll explain everything to you when you’re a little bit more… presentable.”
“Presentable?”
“Well, yeah, I’m not going to introduce you to them when you’re all high-strung like this.”
“Wait, you’re expecting me to be friends with them?”
“Well… yeah.” The utter sincerity and twinge of hurt in Oli’s voice finally allowed the tension in Javi’s face to ease off. “Dude, we’ve been friends before Jessie was even born. I’d never keep a secret this big from you, especially when I have a really good feeling you’ll like them just as much as Dad and I do.”
Javi looked back at the door, biting his lip over the fate of every standard he set for himself being put on the line.
“Trust me,” Oli continued, “this is a much bigger deal than you think it is.”
A thought crept into Javi’s head. “What if… What if I say something that… corrupts them, I don’t know, what do I talk to them about?”
“Just be your cool-ass self. Don’t push anything overly hard, and they’ll warm up to you right away. Alright, let’s do this.”
Javi froze to see Oli swing around him and push on the door while turning the knob, the continuation of Fire Your Guns now bursting outwards. “Oli–?”
Oli entered the room, leaving Javi with his back to the Equestrians as they finally got a good look at him. Javi could only turn around and look into each of their eyes, already feeling a great sense of wonder rise in him to find no judgment in their stares. Suddenly, the realization that he was meeting, actually meeting with mythological creatures began to dawn on him, and a wobbly grin began to pull up at his face.
“No way…” he whispered.
“Girls,” Oli began. “…Spike, this is Javier, a really good friend of mine, but as you may have heard, he calls himself Javi.”
“Javi…” Pinkie Pie repeated, her speech earning a near-tearful sigh of amazement out of him. “I like that, but I like Javier too! Oh, why did choosing which name to call you have to be so difficult!”
Javi let out a laugh; perhaps this was going to be easier than he thought. “Listen, Pinks, you can call me whatever you want, whenever you want. Deal?”
“Pinks?” She suddenly got it and let out a gasp. “I love that! I for one am pleased as punch to get to meet you, Javi!”
Pinkie Pie stood on her hind legs to extend her hoof out, the humanity of her gesture making Javi place a hand over his heart with his left hand before accepting her invitation for a hoof/handshake with the right.
“Javi it is, then,” he breathed.
“Sounds cool with me!” Turning to the sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice, he saw as she hopped up onto all fours at once from her laying position. The suddenness of her act caused her to flare her wings out for balance, a side effect that Rainbow Dash’s cocky smile told everyone was intentional. “Name’s Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in all of Equestria.”
Rainbow Dash held her hoof up at Javi, her position on the bed nearly making their heads the same height with each other’s. A few moments passed before the shock of seeing a pegasus’s wings for the first time finally subsided in him. “You don’t say…”
Rainbow Dash snorted a laugh as she let the boy she was very certain would be a friend of hers shake her hoof. “And he’s funny. Yeah, I think you and me are going to be alright.”
Once their shake ended, Javi kept his hand up, awkwardly pointing at Rainbow Dash’s right wing. “May…”
“You what?” Once Rainbow Dash understood, a burst of realization struck her face. “Oh yeah, sure! Put ‘er there!”
She held out her wing, Javi taking a moment to simply appreciate the sight of her cyan plumage. Once he felt comfortable to continue, he reached for the bar of her wing and gently felt it up to the base.
“Wow…” he sighed, “it’s so… firm.”
Rainbow Dash chuclked again. “Kind of hard to fly fast with noodle-wings, ya’ know?”
“No doubt…”
“Hi there, I’m Spike!” The tiny dragon walked up to Javi with his clawed hand already held up to him. “You haven’t met her yet, but I’m the assistant to Twilight Sparkle. She’s a unicorn.”
Javi had already knelt down to shake his hand when his grip involuntarily loosened, still managing to get stunned over this latest news. “There are unicorns…”
“Yep!” Pinkie Pie confirmed. “Our other friend Rarity’s also a unicorn. Sorry you couldn’t get to meet them!”
“He has all summer to, Pinkie,” Oli said, “don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m the exact opposite of worried, Oli! I’m sure they’ll be just as happy to meet you as we are!”
“That’s… that’s awesome.” Javi stood back up, the looks the ponies and dragon were now giving him feeling more warm and inviting than ever. “So, what’chu got so far?”
Oli shrugged and let his arms fall, his hands slapping the sides of his legs on the way down. “I literally only put the AC/DC on less than two minutes before you showed up.”
Javi put his arms and hands out. “Perfect! So we still have plenty of time.”
“So much time!” Pinkie giggled.
“Speaking of,” Spike wondered, “when’s the pizza getting here?”
Oli’s eyebrows raised, realizing that he still hadn’t ordered anything yet, while Javi slowly looked to his human friend. “You ordered pizza?”
Oli slowly made his way back outside his room, pulling his phone from his pocket.
Javi watched him as he disappeared down the hall. “Can you get me a garbage pizza?!”
Javi took a massive bite of his square of pizza, which was stacked high with green peppers, onions, mushrooms, sausage, and bacon. As the Equestrians enjoyed their slices of cheese and Oli took a bite of his pepperoni, Def Leppard’s Pyromania spun on the turntable, filling the room with the sounds of Rock of Ages.
After scarfing down her pizza crust with two chews and one gulp, Rainbow Dash’s mouth was open to speak. “Your worlds’ music is awesome! I’d love to be able to fly to stuff like this!”
Though he took only the one bite, Javi dropped his slice back onto his plate and began cleaning his fingers with a stray napkin left on the bed. “You want to listen to some good flying music? Oli, you don’t mind if I…?”
“No,” Oli tried to say through the food in his mouth, “go right ahead.”
Javi crawled past Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie until he reached one of the bottom rows of the right shelves. Scanning his fingers over the sides of the sleeves, he finally settled on one. Pulling it out, Oli immediately made out the cover of a muscular man holding up a metal globe with the Van Halen art on it.
“Oh yeah…” Oli breathed out excitedly.
“What’s that?” Rainbow Dash curiously asked.
“If he’s playing the song I think he is, boy oh boy…”
“Are you going to tell me, or…?”
“Just give it a listen,” Javi instructed, pulling the needle off of the Def Leppard record.
With impressive dexterity, Javi slid the old record back into its sleeve before sliding the new one out and laying it on the turntable. Carefully aiming the needle back over the fourth of the five track rings, he set it down and backed away, ready for the song to work its magic. As expected, the opening synth and acoustic guitar intro of Dreams began to play from the speakers, and all human eyes were on Rainbow Dash.
“It’s like…” Rainbow paused to take more of the song in as the first loop of the intro closed and repeated for a second time. “It’s like I’m actually above the clouds back home.”
“Right?” Oli enthusiastically agreed.
Rainbow Dash huffed out, completely frozen in awe to be hear music that could so easily transport her to her favorite place in the world. Without even realizing it, her wings slowly came open, the pegasus only able to imagine the wind beneath her wings as she coasted high above the ground as the melody closed out for a second time. Once the rest of the band all came in, Rainbow Dash tucked her wings back in and threw herself onto her stomach, once again finding herself back in the room she had not left yet.
“Oh my gosh, guys!” Rainbow Dash shot to her hooves, nearly knocking over the unattended plates of pizza she and the others left. “This might be the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard!”
“Hang on,” Oli chuckled, “Sammy hasn’t even come in yet.”
“Who’s Sammy?”
The vocals shouted in soon after, and Oli pointed to the turntable as if to answer who had just come in now. Rainbow Dash nodded, approving Hagar’s harsh, higher-pitched voice gelling with the fast and euphoric melodies the band continued to play.
“Looks like you’re going to have to use this song in one of your mashups now!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
“NO!” Rainbow Dash forcefully pointed a hoof. “This song is perfect as is!”
“Wow!” Javi tried to shout over the track. “Calm down, Dash.”
“How can I be calm when I’m listening to the best music ever written?!”
The song’s chorus finally kicked in, and Rainbow Dash tilted her head up, the lyrics sending her on a rapturous adventure in her own mind. “I mean, LISTEN to that! This song was made for me!”
As the second verse began, Rainbow Dash thrashed her head in beat to the song, the others in the room having nothing else to do but let her ride out her high.
“You think she’s ready for Jump yet?” Javi asked Oli.
Oli fluttered his hand at him. “Nah nah, let her have her moment.”
Seeing Rainbow Dash’s energy refuse to let up, Spike quickly began clearing the bed of plates that still had pizza squares ranging from uneaten to down to the crusts. Oli and Javi watched as Spike placed the plates down on the front edge of Oli’s desk where there was plenty of room.
“Hey, thanks Spike!” Oli said to him, genuinely impressed.
“No problem!” Spike chirped. “She nearly even stepped on mine!”
“Actually,” Javi said, “I was going to swing back downstairs and grab some more. Anyone else!”
“Ooo, me!” Pinkie Pie shot her hoof straight up.
“May as well load up one of the boxes with a few of each,” Oli suggested.
Javi pointed at Oli with a snap. “Good idea! I’ll be right back.”
With the song still going and Rainbow Dash showing no signs of calming down until the song ended, Javi exited the bedroom and made his way down the stairs. Turning right into the kitchen, he forcefully came to a stop to see Art already helping himself to a plate. With Javi having entered his peripherals, Art turned around to see Javi standing still as stone.
“Javi?” There was a foreboding tone in Art’s voice that Javi already understood the meaning of. “What are you doing here?”
“I was…” Javi struggled to think of an answer. “…I came to see how Oli was doing on the party music.”
“Is… Oli alone with you right now?”
“Uh… no, I actually already met his new friends. Nice bunch.”
“So you know?”
“About…” Art nodded twice. “I mean, yeah. Yes, I know.”
Art seemed to instantly relax. “Oh, good. They are a nice bunch, aren’t they?”
Javi also felt safe to relax, allowing himself to take in the pleasure of answering his question honestly. “Yeah. I think we also found the blue pegasus’s new favorite song, in case you haven’t heard.”
Art chuckled. “Yep, it’s kind of hard to not hear her enjoying it from down here. Anyways, don’t mind me. I was just swinging by for some ‘za and I’m back off on my way.”
“Oh, okay. I was going to put a bunch on a box and bring it up.”
“Oh, by all means.” Art stepped back and let Javi slide in.
Javi took his final two slices of garbage pizza and placed them in a box only quarter-full with cheese. Taking the remaining quarter of Oli’s pepperoni, he opened a fresh box of cheese and took five extra slices to join with the rest. With his bounty sufficient, Javi snatched the box and briskly walked back up, the Van Halen song winding to a close from Oli’s room.
“Okay, guys?” Art could hear Oli call. “Can we please get back to work? Ray’s folks are paying me a lot for this gig, so I need to start cranking some bangers.”
“Cranking some bangers?!” Pinkie Pie shrieked. “That’s the greatest trio of words I’ve ever heard!”
Art laughed, Pinkie Pie’s energy infectious even all the way down there. “Well, I might as well say hi while I’m here…”
Art put his plate down and made his way toward the stairs where Javi had just headed.
With the front door safely closed behind him, Javi knelt down to reach the Equestrians’ levels as they saw him off from the foyer.
Javi and Rainbow Dash bumped fist and hoof. “It’s been my utmost pleasure getting to meet you. Let me know if you want to hang out sometime.” Javi looked to Oli. “That’d be alright, right man?”
Oli’s eyes were quickly met by Rainbow Dash’s next. With all the pieces he’d need to ensure her safety, he just as quickly shrugged and threw his arms down. “What the hell, I should make that work.”
“Awesome!” Rainbow Dash purred. “I’ll give Oli the deets and let him tell you.”
“It’s a date.” Rainbow Dash’s face went flush, a reaction that went completely unnoticed by Javi as he brought his attention to Pinkie Pie and Spike. “And I’ll catch you two on the flip-si–”
Javi could no longer let air out, his chest getting violently compressed by the tight embraced of Pinkie Pie’s arms constricting the entirety of his torso.
“Hugger,” he choked out. “She’s a hugger.”
“I’m already missing you,” she squealed, “and you haven’t even left yet!”
Pinkie Pie let him go, and he stumbled onto his butt, Spike already approaching him. “Been fun hanging with you today. Hope your chest feels better.”
“No problem,” Javi wheezed, woozily shaking Spike’s hand. “Probably just need an ice-bath and half a bottle of Tylenol and I’ll be good as new.”
“Tylenol, eh? Is that some kind of healing potion or something?”
“…Yeah, or something, exactly. Anyways, sorry, gotta’ go. Seriously about to be late for work!”
“Alright, man, take care!”
“Bye!”
Javi opened the door a crack behind him and slipped out through the thinnest possible gap he could non-awkwardly fit through without anyone outside catching a sight at the winged horse standing in his friend’s house. Oli helped push the door closed, keeping his friends safely concealed.
“So,” Rainbow Dash said, a bit excited, “when’s Javi available next?”
Oli huffed smugly. “He’s going to be at the party tomorrow, you know.”
“Really?! That means–” She gasped, the gravity of the situation hitting her. “That means he gets to see me as a human too?!”
“I guess so. Anyways, how much longer until you guys need to get back home?”
“I promised the Cakes I’d be back before the after-work rush,” Pinkie Pie answered.
“Alright.” Oli began to walk back upstairs. “How’s about we spend another hour brainstorming and call it a day?”
“Sounds alright with me,” Spike agreed.
“Just admit it dude,” Rainbow Dash jeered, following Oli closely behind him, “you’re already bored of us!”
“What? No!”
Rainbow Dash laughed, her mark just as easily excitaable as the best of them. “Just joshing, dude. Come on, let’s think of some good ones!”
Rainbow Dash trotted the rest of the way, beating him to his door. With a smile, Oli quickly strode in after her, Pinkie Pie and Spike matching their pace to rejoin their other friends.