//------------------------------// // A Blast of a First Session // Story: Pinkie Discovers Jazz // by Crisis_Vyper //------------------------------// Chapter 6: A Blast of a First Session “So yer’s saying that now Spike is joinin’ Pinkie in playing jazz?” Applejack asked Twilight as she casually bucks some apples off some of the apple trees. The hind hooves of the earth pony impacted the tree and several dozen apples fell down on the ground “Yeah, Spike relented after Pinkie kept on chasing him for the entire night. You know how good Pinkie is at chasing someone.” Twilight used her magic to sort out the good apples from the bad apples. “Yeah, Ah heard about that from Rainbow and Cranky Doodle Donkey.” Applejack could only remember the time when they retold their tale of Pinkie’s tracking to her, and their eyes look like they are utterly devoid of life. “Now they are practicing at Mr. Harpstrings’ store. He is kind enough to offer a studio for them to play in. I sure hope that nothing will happen in Mr. Harpstring’s store. He is a good pony.” Twilight said before she scoops some of the water from the pail and takes a sip of cool water from the ladle while Applejack hauled some of the apples into the cart. . “Relax Twi, the studio is soundproof and there are no riotin' farm animals to go around. It is like the safest place for them to play some tunes." Twilight chuckles as she heard Applejack’s reasoning. She's right, it is like the safest place to play any form of noise. "Yeah, What could possibly go wrong?” Twilight puts the ladle back into the pail, and went on back to sorting the good apples from the bad apples. ***************************************** -Meanwhile at Mr. Harpstrings' music store- Granny Smith, Pinkie and Spike are waiting for Mr. Harpstrings to open the door to the music studio within his store. “It’s been a while since this room’s been used. I am glad that someone is finally going to perform in this room after all this while.” Mr. Harpstrings opens the door and the darkness within greets all of them. As they all entered into the dark room, Spike could only lament the fact that he should be sleeping right now. He always sleeps in late on Sunday until the afternoon, and being in the studio at 10 o’clock in the morning is not his idea of spending his Sunday. “This might sting a little.” A click could be heard, and room lights up. The others will have to admit that the studio is quite impressive. It is rather large, as it appears to be designed to fit at least a small orchestra of twenty ponies. There are several chairs placed around the room and several music stands placed in front of said seats, all arranged in an aesthetically pleasing manner. A white grand piano is also present in the room, and Spike could only marvel at the pristine cleanliness of the piano and the room, thinking to himself that despite the lack of ponies using this room Mr. Harpstrings still diligently takes care of everything in this room. Spike went on to take a seat in front of the piano while Pinkie hops around exploring the room. “The studio room is soundproof-enchanted, so you can play as loud as you possibly can. Don’t feel shy to go all out.” Mr. Harpstrings hits his hoof as hard as he could at the wall, and indeed they could not hear the sound despite the violent action of his hoof hitting the wall. "There are some of the acoustic equipment over there at the left corner if you need more amplification, and well, you can take a seat anywhere you like.” Spike looks around and managed to see several speakers and microphones at the corner with their wiring. “Thank you so much for letting us play here today Mr. Harpstrings!” “It’s my pleasure, Ms. Pie. Besides you had always been my biggest customer, second only to that DJ pony…..Vinyl is her name I believe. Lovely gal, but she ought to take out her sunglasses from time to time. She had such nice eyes.” The old stallion laughed as he tells Pinkie. “So…..Granny, Pinkie……how long are we going to be in this place?” Spike asked, and he prefers to not stay longer than is necessary. He could now imagine the softness of his bed, and the warmth of his blanket wrapping around him, and oh……don’t get started on those dreams with Rarity. “We will be here all day!” Pinkie exclaimed. Spike knew the answer to his question will be that, but even then he grunts a little at her answer. “Alright you two, just get yerself ready while Ah talk to Mr. Harpstrings a little. If you wanna play, just do so and have some fun playing with each other and make music.” Granny Smith said. Soon enough, the old mare exits the studio with Mr. Harpstrings and as the door closes behind the two older ponies, the dragon and the pink pony are now alone in the studio. “I like this place already!” Pinkie Pie says in her very cheerful voice. Spike on the other hand is less enthusiastic about the whole thing. His head falls on the keys, causing the piano to create several discordant sounds. Pinkie hops towards the acoustic systems, and this time Spike is quite interested, if it is only to see what Pinkie will do with those systems. However, the baby dragon decides instead to take a nap while she went on to do her thing. Unfortunately, Pinkie started to talk to herself as she goes about her business which interrupted his nap. He groans as he is forced to stay awake and watch Pinkie fiddle with the acoustic equipment. “I should put a plug here and a wire there…” Initially Spike was doubtful that Pinkie even knows what she is doing, but it appears that there is more than meets the eye and Pinkie is handling things just fine. However, his suspicion returned when Pinkie beckons Spike to come over. Spike wonders what is it that Pinkie wants him to see. “Check this out. The volume of this thing goes up to ‘11’. I have never seen that level before.” Pinkie points with her hoof to the knob. True to Pinkie’s observation, Spike could see that the volume goes from one to eleven and the music knob is currently pointing at ‘six’. The little dragon frowns at Pinkie and expects an answer from the joyful pony. “I want to see how loud this could be.” Pinkie is now grinning from ear to ear, and Spike does not like the direction of this. She then turns all the knobs of all the speakers to the highest volume possible and turns them all on. Despite his playfulness, Spike does know when something should not be tampered with. “Are you sure we should do that? I mean we could damage the speakers you know….” Spike asked the pink pony. “I am sure it will be fine. I mean I always saw Vinyl cranking up her speakers to the maximum volumes and it never breaks. Besides this place is soundproof as Mr. Harpspring explained to us just now. And we all got headphones too!” She then puts one her headphones and places one of the microphone and its stand in front of her. “Okay, if you say so…” Spike decides to take this at face value. As Pinkie she takes her trumpet, trombone and harmonica out, she also hands over one of the microphone stands to Spike to use for his piano. The dragon takes the microphone and adjusts the microphone so that the microphone is facing the string section of the piano. Before long, they have 10 microphones and 10 speakers each facing them. Spike looks at Pinkie, and Pinkie gives the dragon a smile. “On the count of three. One, two, three….” She mouths out her instructions at Spike, and they started playing. And then there was a bright light. ***************************************** Twilight and Applejack could hear two loud explosions at the same time, and immediately the two ponies stopped what they were doing and ran towards the town. As Twilight looks up in the sky, she could see that Rainbow Dash and several other pegasi are now flying towards Ponyville with some rainclouds in tow. She wonders if there is a fire from the explosion. As the unicorn and the earth pony arrive into Ponyville. Twilight could only mutter three words. “What…..happened here?” Twilight’s expression is that of utter bewilderment as she saw several ponies are now trying to clean the rubble. At the side, it seems that some of the ponies are able to retrieve some of Mr. Harpstring’s instruments intact. Sitting at the corner, sat Mr. Harpstrings with a towel draping his body and his hooves holding a mug of hot chocolate. It appears there . The pegasi are also helping in clearing the rubble once it is apparent that there are no fire from the resulting explosion, thus having no need to use the rain clods. “Well, why don’t we ask him?” Applejack’s voice is tinted with a feeling of discomfort and fear. Applejack walks towards Mr. Harpstrings, with Twilight following shortly after. Soon enough, there are joined by the rainbow-maned pegasus, and they meet the old earth pony. The old earth pony noticed the three mares and waves at them. “Oh Mr. Harpstrings, are you alright? What happened to your store?” Twilight asked the old stallion. She knows the answer to her question, but she does not want to admit it. “Oh, I am fine my dear. As for my store, I have no idea. One second I was talking to Granny Smith in my store, and the next thing I know is that I found myself crashing into some mattresses. It was convenient that are some mattresses that are being hauled in by the moving company. What are the odds of that?” It appears that the old stallion is not at all affected by his store being in rubbles, and instead is actually laughing about it. Rainbow Dash however could sense that the old stallion is not being very truthful about something. In particular, she believes that the old stallion knew what happened in the store that caused the explosion. As a pegasus, she knows the damage caused by a sonic boom and his building is showing the telltale signs of it. “Mr. Harpstrings, do you think it have to do with Pinkie and Spike?” Twilight glanced Rainbow, but Rainbow knows that Applejack would appreciate some honesty as well. The old stallion coughed before answering the pegasus. “Well Mrs. Dash, I honestly have no idea but I would not blame it on the two dears. I highly doubt that they would have enacted several series of unfortunate events that results in the destruction of my store. I highly doubt that somepony plugged the wrong wires into the audio systems, turned the volume of the speakers up to the maximum, and then they decided to play something loud and flashy. The combination of these factors could have caused the store to explode…..twice. Of course the likelihood of that all happening is highly unlikely, and I rather put it on a faulty heating spell problem. They do tend to go all crazy from time to time, and make things explode twice.” The old earth pony’s answer is filled with a warm, tone that is both forgiving and caring. Rainbow raises an eyebrow at the old stallion, realizing that his reply is unnaturally specific, but she decides to not press on the issue. Mr. Harpstrings laughed again, and points towards all his intact musical instruments. “Amazingly enough, the explosion is such that all the tools and instruments of my trade came out from the explosion intact. I guess that is good enough for me.” Mr. Harpstrings reasoned. Rainbow could only leave the matter at that, as he is one optimistic pony.. “What happened to mah Granny? Is she …..?” Immediately a familiar voice answers Applejack’s question for her, a familiar voice that she has grown up listening to “Jackie, don’t you dare say that word! Ah ain’t gone to the other side yet, not until you give me great-grandkids!” Applejack hugs her grandmother, finally knowing that her grandmother is alright. Granny Smith let her granddaughter hug her for as long as she wants. “Ur…..Leeroy,” Granny’s attention is now on Mr.Harpstrings “Whenever you buy your apples from us, it is on us.” Mr. Harpstrings gives Granny Smith a polite bow. Applejack lets go of her grandmother and takes a few steps back. “Where were you two when the explosion happened anyway? “ Rainbow asked both of the old ponies. Both of the old ponies looked at each other. The old green mare is now somewhat at a loss of words, and she is blushing. The old stallion gives a wink to Granny Smith, and the old mare bumps him on the shoulder as if to ask him to stop. “Well…..ur……we were doing somethin’……in the basement.” At first, the younger mares wondered what on Equestria are they doing in the basement, but then they immediately picked up on what is going on. Applejack is now looking at her grandmother with her jaws open and Rainbow Dash is now hitting her hoof on her head, trying to hit something out of her head. As for Twilight she decided to lock the image somewhere and not think about it. “Granny!” Applejack said disapprovingly. Rainbow Dash could only try to not look at the two old ponies with her imagination taking over and decides to not even say anything about the issue. It was then that finally Twilight asked everyone a question. “Did anyone saw Pinkie and Spike?” ***************************************** - Fluttershy’s cottage - “Angel Bunny, it is time for lunch!” But before she could even put the plate of veggies down on the floor, a loud crash startled the yellow pegasus and she immediately jumps behind her couch and hide. She then takes a peek and she saw a big gaping hole like that of a maw on the ceiling of her cottage, showing her the bright skies above. She then turns her attention away from the ceiling above to the sight in front of her. She immediately recognize who her unwelcomed guest were. Spike is groaning and rubbing his head as he lay down on the floor, while Pinkie is standing up on both her hindlegs, and her forelegs up in the air. Pinkie's expression is that of a natural high of happiness. “BEST SESSION EVER!!!!!!”