Pinkie Pie waved to the Wonderbolts as they flew off into the sky.
“Thanks for the save!” She shouted. “I'll be sure to throw you a party next time I'm in Cloudsdale!” She looked around, at the bustling city life of Manehatten surround stretching in every direction. Surely somepony here could help her get to Yakyakistan, or at least to the Crystal Empire.
“You tryin' to get the the Empire filly?” A voice broke through her reverie. A pale green earth pony was standing nearby. He wore his brown mane in a bowl cut, the bangs marking a perfectly straight line above his eyes.
“WOW!” Pinkie exclaimed, jumping into the air. “How did you know? Isn't it just amazing that, while I sat there thinking about how I could get to the Crystal Empire, somepony JUST HAPPENED to walk up to me and know that that's where I wanted to go?!”
“Erm....you said it yourself. Looked like you were trying to do some kind of inner monologue thing. I didn't want to interrupt, but you almost walked in front of a carriage.” He said, scratching his head. “My name's Diamond Sky. Me and my friends are heading out on a concert tour this afternoon that'll take us through Manehatten, Hoofington, Fillydelphia, and the Crystal Empire.”
“All in one afternoon?” Pinkie asked, eyes bulging. “That's oddly convenient and slightly unrealistic!”
“Look, do you wanna come along or not?” The stallion asked. “Our drummer just bailed on us and we could use a set of quick hooves. D'you play?”
Pinkie tapped idly on her chin. She had never played any instrument at all, but she was overcome with the odd thought that some alternate hairless ape version of her was an expert drummer, so of course she must be as well. “Yup!” she said, grinning.
“Perfect!” Diamond Sky said. “Come on back to the cart and meet the guys!”
Pinkie followed along as the pony trotted to a nearby cart. The open top was stacked with cases and boxes. Two other stallions lounged in what open space they could find. Diamond called out as they approached.
“Blackbird, Dream Scene! I've found us a new drummer!” The stallions looked down at the pair. “This is....Oh, I'm sorry.” He grinned awkwardly. “I never asked your name, did I miss?”
Pinkie grinned. The three stallions shielded their eyes from the blinding light. “My name's Pinkie Pie!” she said. “Pleased as punch to meet all of you! I'll need to throw you guys a New Friends party when I have time!”
There was, of course, no time for parties. The band had several gigs to play, and all in the space of one short afternoon. The cart rumbled off down the street, and the band began their rise to unbelievable and unbelievably short-lived super-stardom.
The Manehatten gig, such as it could be called, was an appearance on a popular radio show. Toast of the Town, named after its host Dry Toast, was the first step on the road to being the next big pop sensation, according to the band's managers. Pinkie had yet to meet these mysterious managers, but her new friends apparently trusted them implicitly, and that was good enough for her.
Dry Toast seemed nice enough when he met with them before the show. The deal they'd worked out was simple. They would perform to open the show, and then again to close. The pay wasn't great, but the managers had insisted that the exposure was worth it. After going over the process, he ducked out of the dressing room and let the band prepare.
“Say,” Pinkie asked as the others tuned their instruments. “Where are you colts from anyways? I've never heard accents like yours before.”
“Ever been to Trottingham?” Blackbird asked as he plucked the strings on his bass. Pinkie shook her head. “Well, about an hour's walk outside of the city proper there's a little town called Whitherpool. We all grew up right around there.”
“Wow! So you three have been friends since you were little colts?” Pinkie asked, eyes sparkling. “That's superultramazing!”
Dream Scene laughed, setting his guitar and the cloth he was polishing it with aside. “That's one word for it, I guess. I love these blokes like me brothers.” He sighed. “Don't mean they can't get on me nerves from time to time though.”
“Told you last time, mate.” Diamond Sky said, sipping from a bottle of Sweet Apple Acres Special Reserve. “You need to work on your songwritin' a bit more before we can put it on an album.”
Dream Scene opened his mouth to retort, but the door swung open and two unicorns burst in. Both were tall, and obviously related. Their yellow coats and red and white striped manes confirmed this, and the point was driven home by matching cutie marks. On one, an apple missing a single slice, on the other was the missing slice. The only other distinguishing feature was one brother's luxurious mustache. The pair wore matching suits and hats.
“Flim! Flam!” Diamond Sky said, grinning. “I'd like you to meet our new drummer, Pinkie Pie.”
Within Pinkie's mind raged a fierce internal debate about whether to expose Flim and Flam for the con artists they were. This debate, if put to film, would include several animated rubber chickens and a hairless alpaca named Carlos fighting with swords made of light and would cost more bits than Equestria's entire annual GDP to produce. For those reasons, it is being left to the reader's imagination.
Within Flim and Flam's minds, a very different debate was going on. Tiny accountants were crunching numbers, endlessly calculating whether the loss of their managerial income outweighed the risk of that pink pony exposing what they'd done in Ponyville. They had already planned an exit from the building, agreed on a place to meet up again, and decided what to pack when Pinkie simply grinned at them.
“Hi! My name's Pinkie Pie!” She said, darting up to them and shaking their hooves. “I'm super-duper-ultra excited to meet you for the first time ever!”
“Err.....yes. A pleasure miss Pie.” Flam said, visibly relieved. “Glad to have you on board!”
“Indeed. My brother and I are truly pleased to make your acquaintance!” Flim added, grinning. “We were just popping in to let you know that your set starts in five minutes. Best get ready, we've got places to be...”
“Music to play...” Flam continued, trailing off as he waited for his brother.
“And bits to rake in!” Flim finished. “Go show the good ponies of Manehatten that the next big thing in popular music has arrived, my colts....and filly.”
With that, the pair retreated as quickly as they had entered. The door shut, and Pinkie could have sworn she heard two sets of rapidly fleeing hoofsteps.
“Wow. They didn't launch into a spontaneous musical number or anything. Dunno what you did, Pinkie, but you rattled 'em good!” Dream Scene chuckled. “We'll have to keep you around for a while.”
“Right, boys.” Diamond Sky said, swinging his guitar onto his back. “Let's go and entertain some ponies.”
The four trotted out of the dressing room, and into the pages of musical history.
The heat of the lights, the flashing of cameras, the screaming of the crowd. The concert was everything Pinkie had ever dreamed that pop music could be. Then, all too soon, it was over. Flim and Flam corralled the band back onto the cart and they set off. Screaming fillies chased after them, throwing socks and bridles. A few stallions ran with the crowd as well, something Pinkie had not expected.
Before long, the cart was rumbling to its next stop. Hoofington was a welcoming town, for the most part. The band's opening act, Pinkie was told, was to be a famous traveling magician who had grown up there and made her grand return only a few short months before. She had, so the gossip went, taken one look at the band's new member and run off to her cottage. The door had been solidly locked and barred since.
Nonetheless, the show went on. The band members had, with some reluctance on the part of Blackbird, donned outlandish uniforms that looked like something out of a military recruitment poster through the lens of some very strong psychedelic substances.
The three stallions had also, somehow, sprouted quite impressive mustaches. Pinkie briefly tried to understand how, but decided instead to accept it as a natural mystery of the world. This was her response to nearly everything that she didn't understand. It, she had found, made life a lot more enjoyable.
The show was among the most fun things Pinkie had ever done. She'd come to love drumming over her short career in music. The music seemed to fill her, to flow in her very veins. The song was one she'd never heard, apparently written on the road, but the drumming came naturally to her. She grinned as she drummed, thinking to herself that she did, indeed, get by with some help from her friends. This, she decided, was her favorite song.
A reporter trotted up to them as they put away their instruments after the set. In the grip of her magic she held a notepad and a quill.
“Pardon me,” She began, “but would you ponies mind a brief interview? The Canterlot Times would love to get the story on the hottest new pop act in Equestria!”
“Well.....I don't know...” Diamond Sky said, frowning. Before he could continue, Pinkie interrupted.
“We'd LOVE to be interviewed!” She exclaimed, hopping on the spot. “Is our picture gonna be in the paper too? I haven't made the news since that party I threw for Twilight's coronation! And, well, that other thing but I'm still kinda embarrassed about that one.” She shuddered. “Vinyl and Octavia are still cleaning custard off their ceilings.”
“Er....yes.” The reporter said. “Shall we get started?”
The article went out quickly, for a special Canterlot Times leaflet. This was both good...and bad. The interview was mostly standard, but with one slight controversy attached.
“What do you think,” the reporter asked, flipping to a new page in her notepad. “of the fact that more ponies attended your concert than attended Princess Twilight's coronation ceremony earlier this year?”
“Well,” Diamond Sky began, smirking. “Obviously, it means that we're more popular than the princess.”
They left that town in the dust, as ponies far off grew incensed that somepony would dare proclaim themselves more popular than royalty. These ponies, though few in number, were extremely outspoken. This aided them little, however, as sensible ponies everywhere ignored them.
The cart rumbled north. They left the temperate climate behind, and set out for the Crystal Empire. The air began to grow cold.
Pinkie was nodding off to sleep when the cart stopped suddenly. A mare stood on the side of the road, deep in snow. Her green mane showed through the heavy cloak she wore, and the tangled dreadlocks of her mane were caked with snow. Pinkie recognized her at once. The memories of the Gala were still fresh in her mind.
“Oi!” Dream Scene called to her. “D'you need a lift?”
She looked up slowly, as if dazed. Her eyes drifted across the cart and its inhabitants. She grinned.
“Groovy. Are you going to the Crystal Empire?” She asked. “I've heard the crystals there have, like, healing powers. The harmonics are, like, totally groovy.”
“Yep.” Diamond Sky said, holding out a hoof. “Hop aboard!”
“Hi Tree Hugger!” Pinkie said as the other mare took the offered hoof. “My name's Pinkie Pie! I'm a friend of Fluttershy's, remember?”
A glimmer of recognition came into Tree Hugger's eyes. She smiled. “Groovy.” She said.
The mare climbed up, and as she passed Pinkie she swore there was an odd aroma around her. She settled herself in a corner and closed her eyes. A moment later, she began making a noise unlike anything anyone but Pinkie had ever heard. Blackbird and Dream Scene winced, but Diamond Sky seemed transfixed.
“I think I'm in love mates.” He said, his eyes blank and his jaw slack. He stared at the mare for the rest of the ride.
As they approached the Crystal Empire, the band wrote music. Flim and Flam insisted that the group have new music to perform at each concert that afternoon, and instead of arguing that writing an entire set's worth of brand new melodies AND lyrics AND practicing them until they could reliably play the songs, the band merely agreed and set to work. Pinkie never questioned this. All afternoon, she'd been gripped by the certainty that she was living a cheap and poorly researched parody of the rise and fall of a band from some alternate world. In situations like that, she'd long since learned, asking questions was a sure way to go mad.
Diamond Sky, enraptured still by Tree Hugger's eccentric ways, wanted to incorporate more of her strange ideas into the songs. New instruments, odd arrangements, and inspiration from some culture to the far east. She seemed to love the songs, proclaiming them “groovy” and claiming that they “totally light up my chakras”, while Dream Scene and Blackbird merely cringed.
At last, they had arrived. The archway that led into the Crystal Empire was ahead, and Pinkie was eager to meet up with Princess Cadence, who would be able to lead her to the border with Yakyakistan. But first, they had a concert to play.
The four ponies trotted through the Crystal Empire. For Pinkie, it was nothing she hadn't seen before. For the others, however, it was easily the grandest sight they'd seen.
“The venue's right across the road here mates!” Diamond Sky said, pointing at a large crystal building. He began to cross, but Pinkie grabbed him and stopped him before he could step off of the sidewalk.
“There's a crosswalk right there, we should use that.” Pinkie said, gesturing ten feet down the road. “Partly because it's safer, and partly because it'll make a great iconic album cover shot.”
The others shrugged. They'd learned to just go with the flow when it came to Pinkie Pie. Diamond Sky led the group across the painted lines of the crosswalk. Pinkie followed him, bouncing as she crossed. Blackbird and Dream Scene brought up the rear. As they walked, each was overcome by the idea that, in some strange way, they were again being made to re-enact some iconic event from an alternate universe. Each merely chalked the feeling up to the brownies that Tree Hugger had made.
They played a long show in the Crystal Empire, easily the longest of the entire afternoon. Their older songs, the ones written hours ago before they even left Manehatten, were warmly received. The newer ones, at least those that had been heavily influenced by Diamond Sky's infatuation, went over less well. Blackbird and Dream Scene struggled to keep up with the erratic arrangements and winced at Tree Hugger's backing vocals. The mare had a real set of pipes, and used them to easily fill the immediate area with her strange singing style.
At last, the show ended. Pinkie and Diamond Sky were putting away their instruments when Dream Scene and Blackbird burst into the dressing room.
“That show was a disaster!” Blackbird shouted, slamming the door shut. “And I think we all know who's to blame!”
“Ever since you started shackin' up with that mare, you've been screwing up our whole sound!” Dream Scene said. “I can understand experimenting with styles and tryin' new things, but diving head-first into....whatever that noise she has you making? That's insane!”
“Tree Hugger has some great ideas mates.” Diamond Sky replied, sipping some tea. “The world just isn't ready to appreciate them. We're ahead of the curve. The rest'll come around in time.”
“Will they 'come around' soon enough to keep our bills paid mate?” Blackbird asked, calmer this time. “Flim and Flam's managerial fees alone are taking a chunk out of everything we make.”
“This isn't about money!” Diamond Sky yelled. “We're making ART here! Who cares how many bits we make on it? THE MESSAGE is what's important! Making a STATEMENT matters! I'll gladly live in a box on the streets before I'll compromise that!”
He sighed, slumped. His glasses say askew on his muzzle and his beard was in disarray.
“This band is important to me, mates. It's important that we aren't just a bunch of sellouts making music because it's popular. I want what we make to have some real meaning, to have some real staying power. If that means it's not popular now, so be it.” He ran a hoof through his mane.
“Look, mate. I get it. You're an artist.” Blackbird said. “But we need to make a living, and if you're going to keep dragging this band down with all your experiments and art, maybe it's better if we go our separate ways.”
“So that's it then?” Dream Scene piped in. “One argument and we're breakin' up?” He sighed. “Ah well. Guess it was a fun ride at least. An afternoon of livin' the dream as pop stars, leading in to a lifetime of obscurity.”
And with that, the band was disbanded. Rumors flew about what happened to them after that, but here's the honest truth: Blackbird formed his own band. They did quite well, and he went on to perform for many more afternoons. Dream Scene kept writing and performing, but never reached the level of fame that he'd enjoyed for the one fateful tour. Diamond Sky's life was the most eventful, if only because it was shortened in a dramatic fashion. A fan came up to him on the street and asked for his autograph. The stallion was, of course, happy to agree. After signing the album that the fan gave him, he turned away. The fan, whose name has been lost to time, pulled a knife and fatally stabbed him. As for Pinkie Pie, she went on to her meeting with the Princess and from there to the frozen lands even further north.
For her, it was merely part of a major adventure, one that took most of the afternoon. A mere stepping stone along the path to throwing the perfect party for Prince Rutherford and the other yaks. But she would always treasure the memories she made as part of that traveling band, even if they never came up again in any way that mattered in the grand scheme of things.