//------------------------------// // Chapter 06 - A day in the life // Story: Music Sounds Better With You // by Proswagonist //------------------------------// Chapter 6 Alan Ryves was by no means a morning person. When given the choice between waking up at the same time as most people, or sleeping in his warm, and very comfortable bed, it's easy to think of him as nocturnal. However, of the myriad things that one might attempt to rouse him from slumber, the smell of breakfast cooking was a surefire way to get his attention. In his half-awake state, he rose out of bed with a goofy smile on his face. Halfway down the stairs to the kitchen, his brain turned on with the thought how is someone cooking without the gas on? Now more awake with that thought, Alan picked up the pace to the kitchen, sliding slightly as he rounded the corner to the doorway. "Oh hey man. You're awake. I hope you don't mind, I used the last of your eggs for breakfast. I woke up starving for some reason" Said Vinyl Scratch with a half-lidded smile, her horn alight with the same pale blue glow surrounding the frying pan that was floating in front of her. "How do you like your eggs?" "Uhm.. sunny side up, if you can. How.. uh are you cooking with the gas off?" "Little spell I learned a while back. One of the few I really memorized. Heats up a pan in no time and is pretty easy to maintain. A girl's gotta eat." With little ceremony and nary a word, the two ravenously dug in to their eggs, decimating them in no time. As Alan was raising the last forkfull of egg to his mouth, there was a sharp knock at the front door, causing him to jump at the sound. "Shit. I hope that's the utilities crew, cause I just ran out of shirts to wear." he grumbled while standing up and attempting to wipe the oily egg stain from his formerly white shirt. "I'll get the dishes" Vinyl shouted after him before quietly adding "Oh.. right, water's off," with a facehoof. Two hours later, Vinyl Scratch was in her room, having managed to get the dishes clean, and now having hooked up her new equipment and checked to make sure everything worked. The things Alan had given her were all like new, so there had been no problem. No problem, save one. "Fuck... I can't think of anything to write," she said while lazily tapping a key with her hoof. To Vinyl Scratch, this was the worst possible thing. Creativity was supposed to be one of her strong points, but now, even with a giant set of new experience pushed on her to draw inspiration from, nothing comes. With a grumble, she removed her headphones, setting them down slowly, and sighs. "I wonder what Alan's up to? I may as well check in on him anyway," she said, shutting off her equipment for now. Her eyes linger for a moment on her shattered shades, accompanied with a frown, before opening her door. As Vinyl began walking downstairs, she heard something very peculiar to her: the sound of someone talking in a language she couldn't identify. Rounding the corner of the stairwell, she finds Alan laid back on the couch in the living room, watching an animated scene with several characters talking in that language she still couldn't identify. In the scene, a large red-maned man is sitting on the ground, sharing wine with a man in golden armor, and a woman in silver and blue armor. "Heya Vinyl." Alan said in the way of a greeting, not turning away from the screen. "Heya, two legs. What's this?" Vinyl asks, slipping onto the couch beside him. "Fate/Zero. I'd downloaded this show forever ago, but haven't had the time to watch more of it. It's about a war among seven mages and their summoned heroic Servant spirits in which the goal is to obtain a wish-granting mac guffin." "What language are they speaking? I've never heard this before." "Japanese. It's from a small island nation back on Earth." "Is this show any good?" "Well, I like to think so. It's certainly better than the one it's a prequel of." After a few more minutes of on-screen conversation and a fantastic action sequence where the big red guy completely devastated a group of eavesdropping assassins via summoning them onto a Greek battleground, complete with red's loyal Greek legions, Alan speaks up. "Damn, Iskandar is a badass." "Whoa" is the only word Vinyl Scratch can seem to muster for a moment. "You know, I heard some egghead once try to explain a concept a lot like a reality marble. I didn't listen too hard, but if it led to things like being able to summon an army out of nowhere..." "Heh. I'm not sure if I liked Iskander's better, or the Unlimited Bladeworks that Archer from Stay Night used." "Unlimited Bladeworks?" "Unlimited Bladeworks didn't just create a world full of swords. It created a world full of copies of legendary weapons, including lesser versions of powers they supposedly had. It was pretty much the perfect counter to Gi-WHUPS, almost said too much plot stuff." Alan said, slapping his forehead a bit. "I hate having stuff spoiled for me, but it's kind of hard to stop myself when I get talking." "So, is Stay Night the show that this one happens before?" Vinyl asks. "That's another story. Originally, Fate/Stay Night was what's known as a visual novel. Sort of like a choose your own adventure novel with accompanying music, pictures, and in some, voiced dialogue. Later on, it was made into a show by the same name. That one was, well. Not so good. Music was lacking, the voice acting was stiff as hell, and the animation budget looked like it was mostly blown on a few of the later episodes and the opening credits sequence. Also, the sex scenes were all cut out." "Wow, lame," Vinyl deadpanned in response before realizing something else he said "Wait, sex scenes?" "Yeah, those happen in vn's. The best ones manage to make it feel like you're not even watching porn." Alan says, feeling his face heat up a bit due to the current topic. "Uhm, If you're interested in it, I've got several visual novels and games on the network in this house. I can show you how to get to them from Steve's computer, in your room." "I may take you up on that some time." Vinyl Scratch says before stepping off of the couch and stretching her limbs a bit. "So any plans for today?" Alan inwardly breathes a sigh of relief at the change of topic. "Only thing I've got figured is handing off some books to Twilight Sparkle to copy. She seemed pretty happy about getting books from another world." Alan said with a slight smile. "I've got a lot of different subjects, to boot. Sometimes I would head down to the local used books store and plunk down some cash on a random volume which caught my eye." He said, motioning his hand torwards the book case which dominated one corner of the living room. "What sort of random stuff?" Vinyl asks while looking at some of the titles here and there. "Oh, you know. One or two volumes about and by famous psychologists, a weapons manual for Walther and Mauser firearms companies' handguns, books on learning Japanese and sign language, tons and tons of comics, a few blacksmithing manuals, some artbooks for comics or video games I liked the art style of, as much of Hunter S. Thompson's writings as I could get a hold of, a couple of modern poetry books from 50 years ago, a collection of horror writer H.P.Lovecraft's best works. Things like that. Oh, and of course, my collection of role playing game books." Alan says with a smile before adding "I've got the entire revised edition line of white wolf's world of darkness series games. That shit took forever. I had to watch 4 different used books stores like a hawk to get all those." "That's some dedication, man. Why that particular set, though?" Vinyl asks, turning a hardbound game book in her hoof. "I was unhappy with the reboot of the world of darkness line that came after revised edition, is all. So as people dumped off their older editions for the new line, I snatched them up." "I see. Hey, I'm feeling a little bored, do you need any help getting your books to the library?" Vinyl Scratch asks with a slight amount of hopefulness. "Oh man, could you? That would be a gigantic help. It's a pain in the ass for me to haul much of anything for a long distance ever since I had that bone spur growth that shredded up my knee cap's cartilage." "Ouch. Did it hurt?" Vinyl asks with some concern in her voice. "Only when it made me fall on my face. My doctor did what he could to tidy up in there, but cartilage just doesn't grow back that easy." Alan says, before standing up and stretching a bit, eliciting the sound of pops from various joints. "I'll need you help getting my ride out of the basement, first. I have a chain and pulley elevator I use to take stuff between the garage and basement." "It was that thing that looked like a beefy bicycle, right?" "Yup. That's my Haley Davidson model WLA, first produced over 70 years ago. The A stands for army. I helped dad rebuild that thing for years while he scoured around for parts. Had to fabricate a few parts on my own, too. We decided to keep the bullet holes in the sidecar as sort of a memorial to whomever rode in it last." Vinyl Scratch looks at him with a smile "You're one handy guy to have around. I bet you could make a good amount of money playing Mr.Fixit to the town." "I coulda done that on Earth, too, but everyone wants some piece of paper saying I'm certified to do it." "You should have just pointed at your bike and been all 'This is my certification. I built this." said Vinyl Scratch while waving her hoof about, getting a snicker out of Alan. "Anyway, we'll have to pull the bike up first, then the sidecar separately. Hope you don't mind holding the light for me while I bend over and grunt for half an hour." The sound of Vinyl Scratch's laughter trailed behind the two as they descended the stairs to the basement. The feeling of the wind running through her mane at such speed was new to Vinyl. Sitting behind Alan and wearing a pair of goggles to keep the wind out of her eyes, she held onto his midsection tightly. "Man, this thing is AWESOME. It's also really loud." she said, shouting over the sound of the engine. "It just needs a little tune-up is all." Alan shouts back. After a moment, Alan shouts back again "Are we getting close yet?" Vinyl points at a large tree up ahead with her hoof "It's that house tree up ahead. Can't miss it." To Alan's surprise, it was INDEED a house built into a tree that dominated this particular area. Alan wondered idly if it was some relative of the giant sequoia tree back home. Pulling to a full stop a few feet away, Alan sets down the kickstand and turns the ignition off. Before he finished removing his helmet, a spooked Twilight Sparkle bursts through her front door, horn alight, looking around to find what could have possibly caused so much noise. "WHO, WHAT, IS IT DRAGONS?" Alan and Vinyl share a look before breaking into laughter. "Oh man, I'm so sorry if I interrupted anything. I felt like taking my bike up here for a ride." Before Twilight can open her mouth, the front door of her house once again bursts open with a purple and green blur rushing up to Twilight's side. "IS IT DRAGONS?" asked Spike, looking around feverishly. Alan did his best not to laugh again, while Vinyl couldn't stop herself. "Thanks again, Alan, for bringing these by. I must admit, the library's stock of psychology-related books was a bit lacking, so you've really helped me out. I'm surprised it's a subject you were so interested in." Twilight Sparkle said, while writing down the title and id number of the last of said psychology books, 'Carl Jung for Dummies.' "Well, keep this to yourself, but when you suffer from a particular ailment, you want to learn more about it so you can fight it. In my case, chronic depression." Alan said, keeping his voice low while making a separate stack of books. His answer caused both Twilight and Vinyl to stop in their tracks and look at him with an expression of extreme concern he was unused to. "Dude... I had no idea." Vinyl said, placing her hoof on Alan's back. "Humans are good at not letting others see it, but it's a struggle just to get out of bed every day." Alan says with a weak smile. "Oh my. In ponies, depression has a high fatality rate. Many sufferers just stay in bed and wither away, while others become extremely suicidal. I suppose with all that you said you've been through at your Q&A, it's to be expected, but I hope you're treating it," Twilight interjected. "Actually, I am, but I'll need to find a good doctor so I can keep my prescriptions going. If you know of one, could you maybe send copies of some of the relevant books I've brought with me over to them?" "I'm going to fast track those for you, since it's a serious matter," said Twilight. "And I'm going to make sure you get out of bed every day."Vinyl Scratch added with a smile. "I'd really appreciate it, both of you. Thank you." Alan takes in a deep breath as if cleansing his thoughts before speaking again. "So, onto less depressing subjects, I think all that's left to bring in is the-" before Alan can finish, the front door swings open, and in walks Spike, pile of books in hand. "These books all have weird titles. You said they're games?" Spike asks, grunting slightly as he places them down besides Twilight. "Yeah. Role playing games. Typically, several players, at least 4 for a decent group, make up characters based on an established set of creation rules in the book, while one player, called the game master or storyteller or that sort of thing, plays the role of pretty much every character that isn't a player. It's the GM's duty to provide a story for the players to interact with." Alan explains. "Most systems use dice to determine the success of actions. Shadowrun uses a LOT of standard six-sided dice, the World of Darkness series uses up to ten ten-sided dice, and Dungeons and Dragons uses several varying kinds of polyhedral dice, but typically uses a 20-sider for most actions." "Uhm, what's polyhedral mean?" Both Vinyl Scratch and Spike say in unison. "In geometry, a polyhedron is a solid, three dimensional object with multiple flat faces and straight edges." Twilight Sparkle says in a sage-like manner. "Couldn't have said it better myself." Alan says with a smile. "Say, you're still coming by to watch Cosmos tomorrow, right?" "I am, yes. Has anything changed?" Twilight asks, her face scrunched in concentration while she scribbles. "No, actually I was just going to say that if you felt like inviting some friends along to watch, I had the sudden urge to cook for a large group." "I think I may know one or two ponies who could come." Twilight says with a smile before turning back to her work. "How about you, Vinyl?" Alan asks the white mare. "Well, actually, I don't have that many solid friends here in Ponyville, outside of Pinks and Lyra, who is out in Canterlot touring with the orchestra there for a bit. I think you'd like her, dude. She'll be super stoked that you're real." Alan blinks in response. "Care to explain that one?" "Well, she's a human enthusiast. Everypony believed you guys were just myths here, but Lyra believed you guys existed all along," explained Vinyl Scratch. At that moment in Canterlot, a certain mint-colored unicorn mare sneezed.