//------------------------------//
// The Wrong Kind of Fame 
// Story: Through Martyr's Eyes 
// by ShouldNotExist 
//------------------------------//

-The Wrong Kind of Fame-



“Oh, my.”  Fluttershy whispered, her voice coming out quickly as she covered her muzzle with her hooves.

“‘Mom’?” Rainbow muttered, her eyes flashing open in surprise as she attempted to look back at Marty.

“If you keep doing this shit, the tabloids are gonna go nuts over you, again.” Even Essence said, ignoring the other mares in the room as she continued to berate Marty. He simply sat there, one hoof hanging over his muzzle in defeat. “I don’t think I can handle another encounter with the friendly cameras of those bloodsuckers.” She muttered, hopping off of the couch and walking around. That’s when she finally noticed the other mares in the room.

“Oh.” She sputtered, stopping as she reached the arm of Marty’s couch. Then a look of realization passed over her. “Oh! You were the mares in the red section.” She said with a smile, finally seeming to relax. “How did you get dragged in here?” She finished with a smirk, starting to walk again.

“Dragged?” Applejack asked, almost sounding insulted as she did. She looked over at the skinny unicorn stallion that they had followed to the show. 

“Haha!” Was all Even Essence responded with as she joined the pink party pony at the bar, but rather than take a seat she started grabbing bottles in her magical glow.

“I think I know what’s going on.” Rarity said, a small smirk on her face as she reclined on her couch. She was granted with the confused looks of the others, and a wink from Even Essence as she continued to pour herself a mixed drink. “Honestly, I thought I recognised you! You were that party colt from a few years back that was arrested ... for knocking down a building.” She said, pausing dramatically as she twirled a lock of her mane in a hoof.

“It wasn’t my fault!” Marty said quickly, his shoulders falling in defeat as he heard the confused and surprised sounds of the other mares.

“You knocked down a building?!” Rainbow shouted in surprise, hopping up and giving a more than excited look over at Marty. “Dude, that’s awesome!”

“Not. Awesome.” He muttered, sinking back further.

“I believe that ‘Purple Hoof’ wrote a song about it. Something about ‘Some stupid with a flare spell’?” Even Essence mused aloud, an innocent look decorating her features and her voice. “Yep, there were lotsa big shots at that party.” Even Essence muttered as she took an experimental sip of her drink. She ended up putting it down and dragging several more bottles over to start mixing again.

“Really?” Twilight spoke up, looking at the skinny unicorn again.

“Yeah.” He said, his whole body seemed to deflate as he spoke. “Stupid mare convinced me to try a spell. I was drunk out of my mind, and probably high on more things than I can count. So not the smartest decision at the time, especially with so much loud music, shouting, and other noises.” 

“And then you repented, blah, blah, blah.” Even Essence finished for him. “And you repayed the building’s owner, and you went to rehab. Enough sob story crap. I want to know how you six got mixed up with this washout.” She said, walking over to take a seat on the same couch that Rarity was reclining on.

“He sorta, ran inta us.” Applejack muttered, still looking incredulously at the blind pony that sat across from her.

“Literally.” Rainbow agreed, a smirk decorating her face as she looked over the selection of foods spread across the table on the other side of the room.

“Hehe. Heard that one before, he wouldn’t be falling in the streets so much if he let Ironrod out there go with him, that wouldn’t happen.” Even Essence laughed, motioning to the door and the stallion positioned outside.

“I told you,” Marty said, said with frustration. “I don’t like a rope around my neck every time I go outside. It’s ridiculous and makes me feel like a foal.” He finished, crossing his arms and aiming his head to look at the ceiling while laying back across the couch, not that he could see it.

“Whatever, we did it for awhile.” Even Essence said, taking a sip from her drink as she rolled her eyes.

“Did what?” Rainbow asked, her attention pulled away from the table of foods before her. The comment had caught her off guard, and had almost sounded scandalous for a moment.

“I used to take him around with a rope tied between us so he couldn’t wander off, or get lost. Useful for a blind colt growing up in a city.” She replied, taking another sip of her drink. Marty scoffed quietly as he continued his blind staring contest with the ceiling.

“I was way too old to be led around by my mother on a leash.” He muttered quietly, continuing the blind staring contest with the ceiling.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked, surely if he was just a foal that wouldn’t have been too uncalled for.

“I was freaking fourteen.” He explained, rubbing at the top of his muzzle and taking a deep breath through his nose. “I wasn’t blind until about then.” He finished, turning an ear over to her and listening carefully for her response.

“Oh.” She said, surprised at the more private topic that she had unknowingly broached. “I’m sorry.” She said, trying to feebly make up for the sensitive topic that she had brought to light.

“Don’t be.” He said dismissively, putting on a stoic expression that seemed fairly feeble on his thin frame. “It’s not so bad, can still feel around with magic. And it’s only made Etymancy easier.” He finished waving down toward his flank and the cutie mark presented there.

She followed his gesture and looked down at the intricately designed marking. The first thing that really caught her attention was the ring around the center markings, it was a circle of five unicorns with their legs intertwined to make a complete ring. In the center was a marking so intricate that it would take a fairly trained eye to say that it was anything other than a mindless scribble.

But Twilight did have that kind of eye for these things, she wasn’t the personal student of Princess Celestia for nothing. It was a spell matrix, a very intricate one. She couldn’t tell its purpose, that would take a long amount of experimentation and examination that she was pretty sure that Marty would not appreciate. The lines swirled around each other, but in the middle a pentagon was clearly left vacant. It was a pentacle, she realized. One of the unicorn figures in the ring at the point of each arm of the star.

One thing about pentacles, they are not pentagrams. When a pony sees these kinds of markings they can usually, and foalishly, think that it has to do with demon worship. But they can be used in thousands of other circumstances, and usually have nothing to do with demons. Each point represents an old element of the world; Fire, Earth, Air, Water, and Spirit. When a circle surrounds it, it represents the unity and harmony of those elements. It is a symbol that quite simply means ‘Magic’.

“Sheesh, Twilight. How long are ya gonna stare at Marty’s flank?” Rainbow teased, pulling Twilight out of her thoughtful introspection. She felt her face instantly flush with heat as she realized that the entire time she had been thinking, her eyes had been firmly aimed at Marty’s backside.

She quickly looked away, a hasty apology sputtering out of her lips as she tried to hold onto whatever dignity Rainbow would leave her with. But her response only succeeded in drawing a bout of raucous laughter from all the mares present. As it died down she was able to spot a wink directed at her, from both Rarity and Even Essence. It was enough to make her sputter out wordlessly at the teasing gesture, and enough to make them all laugh again.

Marty turned to aim his face at her so that she could see the warm smile on his face. “I don’t mind at all, especially since somepony as intelligent as you must be would know what it actually means.” He said, giving her an appreciative nod.

“Oh, when you didn’t say anything to who I was, I thought you might not have understood what I said.” Twilight said, a slight amount of confusion starting to push away the embarrassment of being caught practically ogling him. “Why didn’t you say anything?” She asked, trying to drive the conversation away from the previous topic.

“When you’re in this business long enough, you tend to get tired of praise. Especially when you hear it day in and day out, but that’s not entirely true either.” He replied, ending the comment with a slight chuckle. “I happen to know a few ponies that literally live off of that.” He said, turning back to the couch that Even Essence and Rarity were lounging in. “Speaking of, when does Hoof Tool come on the stage?” He asked, directing the question to the darker maned unicorn there.

Even Essence lit her horn with its almost-white glow, levitating a magical clipboard to float in front of her face. “Let’s see, looks like they’re on after Dethpony.” She said dismissively, looking back up to him and returning to that reprimanding tone that she had held earlier. “Just enough time for you to tell me why, in the precious name of Celestia, that you ran off like you did.” She said, returning the clipboard to the wall it had been hanging from, some of the numbers on the list shifting around as the concert went on.

Marty instantly returned to the poorly made stoic look he had held earlier. “My contacts were bugging me.” He said sharply, indicating that he would rather not broach that subject.

“Don’t give me that.” Even Essence said in reply, annoyance starting to lace her voice. “Do you want me to guess?” She said, a warning tone in her voice as she raised an eyebrow and looked at him. While he couldn’t see the look she had given him, the tone in her voice must have been enough to elicit a response.

His face scrunched up, like someone was trying to make him eat something particularly foul. “The song, I forgot who it was about.” He said darkly, aiming a particularly peeved look over at the couch that she sat in.

Even Essence sighed, setting her drink down. Her demeanor had gone instantly from an upset look, to one of guilt. But she didn’t comment on it again. She turned to look at Twilight. “Hey, Twilight. Would you mind walking, Martyr out to the red section with you. He can’t get there on his own, and Ironrod should be off duty now. He usually goes after Martyr is done with his performances and somepony else is here to watch him.” She asked, and Twilight would have responded if Marty hadn’t interrupted her before she could begin.

“That’s not my name.” He said, continuing to look at her with that withering glare.

“It’s the one h-” Even started, cutting herself off quickly and taking a large gulp of her drink with a furrowed brow decorating her face. “I think you were going to say something, Twilight. Go ahead.” She said, changing the topic back just as swiftly as it had diverged.

Twilight almost jumped, realizing that she may have just been dragged into an old family argument. She decided that agreeing to her proposal might be smarter than staying within the destruction radius of something that could quickly turn ugly. “O-Oh, yeah. I was just going to say that I could do that. Come on, Marty. You can tell me some about this band.” She said, standing from her own seat and moving toward the door.

Marty stood wordlessly, his magic gripping the weathered cane that he had been carrying, but leaving the bags where they sat. He made his way out of the door along side her, keeping himself close to her and tapping the ground in a sweeping arc in front of himself. When the door had shut behind them, he relaxed almost instantly.

“Sorry you had to hear that.” He said after a moment, Twilight guiding him around a corner and following the sign that pointed with a green arrow toward the stadium. His apology took her off guard however.

“What do you mean?” She said, starting down the pathway and listening as the sound of a very heavy bassline started to reveal itself, even through the walls.

“That was family business, and you got caught in the middle of it. I don’t like dragging other ponies into my personal problems, especially when they’re my guests.” He said, one of his ears turning to her in a gesture that she was starting to realize was almost equal to somepony turning to look at her.

“Well.” Twilight replied, but mostly just trying to fill the space as she tried to think of what to actually say. “We all have problems, and everypony has their secrets, so I won’t press you for it. Why don’t you tell me about this band you were talking about. What was it called?” She finally settled on, drawing the subject back to something that was less stressing.

“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, following her around another corner and continuing to walk closely beside her. “They’re called, Hoof Tool. But most ponies just call them, Tool, for short.” He nodded, his ears flicking up to the ceiling as the last of the heavy music faded away. “They have some pretty interesting lyrics, put together with this really interesting aggressive style that they have. It’s actually all really cool, especially when you stop to think about the lyrics. They manage to sound incredibly awesome and still stick to a song that has meaning that’s more than; ‘My marefriend left me, and now I’m sad.’ or ‘angry’ or whatever.” He said dismissively, walking out into the stadium alongside Twilight.

The last band had just finished, a loud and drowning cheering hitting their ears with an almost palpable pressure. They made their way quickly over to the red section, the satisfyingly soft, red carpeting a welcoming comfort among the intensely loud crowd nearby. They took a seat near the velvet rope that separated the section from a short amount of green and then the actual stage.

“You might like it!” Marty shouted over the slowly dying cheers as the next band set up. “But it does get pretty intense, so hold on tight!” He said, a joke lilting his words in a cheery way.

Twilight managed a forced, and barely noticeable, agreement. She turned back to the stage to see the other band making its appearance. The first thing that she noticed, was that they were all stallions. It seemed a little strange, especially since most bands were in a herd together. But the other thing was, she couldn’t spot a singer. Could one of the instrument players be a singer? That didn’t seem to fit though, seeing as a microphone had been set up near the front of the stage and none of the stallions had moved to approach it.

The music started soon after they had set up however, the deep tones of another downtuned guitar, and a bass filling the air.



The music picked up quickly from its relatively gentle start. Smoke started to pour into the stage, a sickly green that started to hide the stallions as they concentrated on their respective instruments. A light flickered in a strobe pattern, a shadowy silhouette of a pony looming out from behind the microphone. The ponies cheered instantly at the sight, but the sheer mix of ‘boos’ and other cheers made it impossible to tell if the crowd was happy or incredibly disappointed at the show.

In a moment of speed, the figure zipped forward. Its wings creating eddies in the air behind it as it pushed forward, the insect-like hoof snatching up the microphone. His scratchy voice echoed out over the stadium, a strangely metallic and still organic sound that its strange vocal chords created.

It was a changeling. Twilight stiffened almost instantly at the sight of its chitin covered body, the fangs on its muzzle presented in glinting lights as his shadow cast itself on the smoke, looming high over him. While she knew that the changelings had been signed into a peace treaty with Equestria, the events at the wedding still loomed heavily on her mind. She couldn’t help the almost instinctive disgust and hatred she had for the creatures. She hadn’t exactly enjoyed the fact that their queen had been feeding off of her brother.

All the same it continued to sing, practically drinking in the crowd as he did. The lyrics almost fitting perfectly to her view of the strange creatures. Her mind looked at the irony of how he sang it, the lyrics fitting perfectly with her opinion of how she saw them. He jumped up into the air, the clouds of smoke shiting from the movement of his insect’s wings. The darkly themed lyrics echoing out as he practically begged the crowd to give him their worst.

She was so engrossed in her own thoughts of hatred for the creature that was singing that she almost didn’t hear the cheering coming from right beside her. A short dip in the volume of the music revealed it to her ears however.

She turned her head in surprise at the darkly shaded unicorn beside her, his enthusiastic cheering completely throwing her off guard. Did he not know what the singer was? She would think that somepony as integrated into the musical business would at least know who the band members were, right?

The music dipped down again, a dim light shining from the stage and drawing her gaze back to the front. She almost jumped right out of her fur as she did though, the changeling had walked down from the stage and was standing just on the other side of the rope. He was smiling, smirking being a better fit to what his insect-like features made, as he looked straight at her with his compound blue eyes.

He sang softly, as if the lyrics were directed straight toward her. He looked right into her eyes, and she couldn’t tell if this was only a coincidence that he had used those lyrics to speak to her, or if he had purposely come down to taunt her. He was a changeling, he definitely knew who she was.

He turned suddenly, his attention shifting to Marty beside her. The changeling tapped his chin, raising the microphone up to Marty’s mouth in expectation. For a moment, all Twilight could think of was how disrespectful this changeling was being. It was painfully clear that Marty was blind, in the black lights, his clouded eyes practically glowed. But Marty surprised her further when he happily sang part of the lyrics into the microphone before him.


“The universe is hostile,


so impersonal.


Devour to survive,


so it is,


so it’s always been.”


The verse was short, Marty’s voice going scratchy and deeper as he replicated the way that the changeling sang. When he had finished, he raised his hoof in the expectation of it being met with a hoof bump. Twilight almost scoffed, the changeling had been teasing him, he was a bully, not his friend. But Twilight was surprised, yet again, when the changeling not only returned the gesture, but had a genuine smile on his face.

The changeling lifted into the air again as he returned to the stage, singing again as he went. The lyrics returned violently, their scratching sounds once again racing out to the crowds. he finished with a flourish, putting on a dramatic bow as he finished and hovered over the stage on his wings.

The crowd returned with a deafening mixture of hatred and cheering. She watched as the changeling shivered, he must have been using the performance to feed. Maybe that’s what Marty had meant when he said that he knew some ponies literally lived off of the attention. Maybe he actually personally knew the changeling. Twilight made sure to make a note in the back of her mind to ask him about it.



The next song started almost instantly after the crowd had died slightly, the changeling’s voice echoing out again, but this time slightly less scratchy as it had been before. He had landed on the stage again, the smoke and lights leaving so that he could sing without the distracting haze that hid the rest of the band.

She listed to the lyrics more carefully this time, taking another glance at the changeling with her new revelation in mind. The changeling was singing while standing on his hind legs, punctuating the words of the song with movements of his hooves, or whatever they were.

The lyrics confused her for awhile, that is until a kangaroo was mentioned. She almost instantly knew what the lyrics said after that. He was referring to hypocrites and kangaroo courts, as well as unsupported prejudice, if she had to guess. She almost felt bad as she realized what they meant.

A kangaroo court was a court case in which the accused was assumed guilty before they really got a fair trial. They were popular in old times, but it was an unfortunate fact that they still happened today. He was referring to the hypocrisy of accusing of a crime, when the court itself would have been committing one.

She felt regret for instantly labeling the changeling as a monster, even if her personal experiences gave her good grounds to do so. She really didn’t have any reason to know who this changeling really was, after all, they had all been being controlled by Chrysalis during the invasion. And with the peace treaty in place, even with most ponies, including herself, thinking that they would go back on their word, they had no reason to fear them anymore. They were supposed to be gaining the nutrition they needed in more civilised ways now, performing in a concert being one of them.

The song died easily, being met again with the mixed response from the crowd. Although it seemed that the song had had a similar effect on the crowd as it had had on her, there were far more cheers for them now than before. She jumped slightly as a hoof poked her in the side.

She turned quickly to see Marty beaming in her direction, a happy smile on his face as he got her attention and called to her over the crowd. “Wanna go meet ‘em?” He yelled, nodding toward the stage as the group of stallions walked off. “Their set’s done for now, we could go meet ‘em in their room.” He encouraged, nodding back toward the way that they had come from.

Twilight had to strain her voice to be heard over the cacophony around them as the next band was revealed on the stage. “Sure! I’ve got a few questions, too! Is that alright?!” She said loudly, standing with him as he nodded. 

He wrapped his hoof around hers as he led them both back to the side of the stadium. His cane tapped the ground in front of him like he had done in the hallway, except this time his horn lit up brighter. Every time the cane would connect with the ground, she could see a visible shimmer of magic spread out in a wave from it. That must have been what he meant by ‘... feel around with magic.’ 

They entered the side door to the underground hallways, the sound of the crowd instantly dying as the door closed. Twilight sighed as her ears continued to ring in the absence of all the noise. “Could you find them on the map? There should be one around here.” He said, catching her attention as he moved to the side of the door, not wanting to get in the way of any ponies who might come by unnoticed.

“Oh, sure.” Twilight replied, moving over to the chart and beginning her search for the room that would be housing the last band that had played. While she looked, she directed her attention back at him. “So, did you know that changeling?” She asked, attempting to hide her still present hatred for the creatures.

He smiled happily toward her, nodding an affirmative. “Yeah, I met him a little after the treaty. The whole band is actually changelings, they were getting together for years when they could, before the actual attack anyway.” He shrugged, waving off the incident as easily as one would a bad novel. “They’re really nice though, you should meet ‘em. I bet you’d get along with them.” He said, talking as if he already knew that she had reserved feelings for them.

“I think that that would be fine. After all, we’re supposed to a country that uses harmony and tolerance as our main policies, so I should at least make an effort to get to know them before I assume anything.” She said, spotting the room that they were in and mapping out a path in her head. “Found it.” She proclaimed, moving to his side so that she could lead him over there.

‘This is going to be interesting.’ She thought to herself as she walked down the corridors leading to the changelings’ room. ‘Hopefully there’s nothing to worry about. Yeah. Hopefully.’ She thought hesitantly, butterflies starting to flit about in her stomach.