It was an average spring day in Ponyville; the town square was bustling with ponies going about their daily routines and minding their own business, Pinkie Pie was crazy and welcoming to everyone as per usual, Applejack sold her apples at her stall, Rarity was working on a new design for some significant pony, Twilight was learning a few new spells and Fluttershy was looking after her woodland friends.
Many ponies were out and about today, but some liked to be to themselves more. One of these ponies was Gritty Metal, who enjoyed just sitting alone in his home practicing on his electric guitar. He had even earned his cutie mark by doing so. He was a very passionate guitarist and also liked performing in front of crowds. But this one time he had not sat down by himself to practice, but he had invited Rainbow Dash over. He would have never admitted it to himself, but he kind of liked her and wanted to impress her with his fresh guitar-work.
Just as he was done with tuning his guitar there was a knock on the door. He put the guitar down in his room and walked down the stairs towards the entrance of his house. He opened the door and saw Rainbow Dash standing right in front of him. He had waited for this day for so long; the day that Rainbow Dash would actually take some time for him. "Hey, Gritty. You wanted to show me something?" Rainbow smiled at him. This was not the time for jokes, not the time for puns. This was the time for stone cold action.
"Yeah, come in. I welcome you to my mess of a house..." He blushed as he noticed that he actually hadn't cleaned up in a while. He walked up the stairs to his room door, with Rainbow Dash following him.
"Actually this is quite tidy... If you've ever been to Cheese Sandwich's house you would know what a mess looks like," she laughed as she followed him through stacks of empty chips packets and unwashed dishes. She followed Gritty to his room where she laid eyes on the guitar he called "Green Flame". She made a sound of amazement over the awesome-looking instrument. "Where did you get that? I want one too."
He chuckled a bit as he struggled to re-gain control of his speech. "Well, it is a... a special custom built model. It's very expensive... It cost me about 3'000 bits," he proclaimed. He looked at her facial expression turning from amazement into sheer awe for the instrument.
She smiled at him and said, "If that was what you wanted to show me, color me impressed. This is one awesome guitar you have there..." She moved closer towards it and sat down next to the guitar stand and pointed a hoof at the artistic masterpiece of a guitar. "Can I try it out?" She looked at him with an excited smile.
"Sure, let me help you though, it's really an art form to play it," Gritty Metal said as he walked over to the guitar stand and picked up the guitar. Rainbow Dash became more and more excited by the second and was shivering with excitement as Gritty put the guitar belt around her neck. "Do you know how it works?" He gave her an asking look as she tried to play a fret but failed to produce a sound.
She looked at him, "A little help would actually be nice..." This was the first time she actually asked for help directly without trying all possible other ways. "I really don't know anything about music, I fly, I don't make music. But I would sure enjoy it," she was so extremely normal around him; no cockiness, no boasting about own achievements, no, nothing of that sort. It was like she was a whole different pony around him.
Gritty Metal played around with the different knobs on the guitar, setting it to a nice distortion that he knew she would love. "Here you go, try again if you want, I switched it on. Just do what you did before and you'll hear the note you are pressing at the moment." He hoped that she would feel good if he gave her the feeling of accomplishment, which he was sure was going to pop up inside her once he taught her a little something on the guitar.
Rainbow Dash pressed down a string on the guitar and hit the string softly with her hoof. She couldn't believe what she heard: An amazingly distorted note, just the way she liked it, hit her ear drum. She smiled brightly at Gritty, who was standing by the door of his room. "I did it! I played the guitar!" She seemed happy with herself. Her smile covered her entire face, from cheek to cheek.
Gritty was impressed with how easily she got hooked on the guitar. Just after she had played her first note she already moved on to playing little improvisations, of which some sounded quite decent. She learned extremely quickly, and got so hooked that she would meet up with Gritty Metal once a week to get a new lesson on the guitar. After only five of these sessions, that usually took about two hours, Rainbow Dash had reached the standard of a beginner who had played the guitar for one year.
After the seventh session something unexpected happened; Rainbow Dash asked Gritty to form a band with him. "How about the two of us start a band? This way both of us can show off our awesome skills together." She put on a smile that no one could have said now to. Gritty Metal had to honor his student's wish and said that it would sure be fun to form a band, but they still needed a bassist, a drummer and a singer. "Thank you, Gritty," Rainbow Dash said and kicked his shoulder with her front hoof playfully. Gritty smiled at her and proclaimed, "BUT, we still have to actually rehearse some songs and come up with a band name before it is officially a band, you know?"
Rainbow Dash came up with a quite awesome band name right off the bat, "How about "Random Acts Of Chaos"?" She smiled at her idea, as the name sounded awesome and would look awesome too with the right layout and font.
Gritty smiled back and nodded, "That is a great name. I would have never come up with something that cool." He was convinced that they would go far with this name and that this cool only be the beginning of something awesome.