It took five minutes for Waveform to calm down, in which time Extralateral had started skidding across the floor on his plot, giggling and then wincing when his horn sparked.
“Ok, I think I’m good,” Waveform said. “But what are we going to do now? We can’t leave until that dummy’s horn gets better.”
“We could explore this place,” I suggested. “I’ve always liked caves.”
“Yeah, might as well,” he said dejectedly.
We walked through the tunnel, Waveform gently pulling Extralateral by his tail. The cave we had been standing in was evidently a side passage because the cavern we were now standing in was vast. You could easily fit twenty ponies in this space and still have room for each to swing a cat. One end opened up to a tunnel leading upwards, the other diminished till it was only a few feet high. At that end were five stalagmite/stalactite structures with various shapes held in between, including a single octahedron crystal in the middle. I gasped.
“Is that…?”
“A fully-cut anti-resonance gem?” Waveform finished for me, just as surprised. “Yes, it is.”
He rushed forward, dropping Ex’s tail. He then carefully grabbed the crystal in his fetlocks, and pulled. With a soft grinding nose, the crystal came free. He clutched it to his chest protectively.
“Yes! Now I can use the Lady!” he grinned over and me and Extra- wait, where was Extralateral?
Looking around, I spotted him siting next to another of the crystal structures, this one carrying an orange dodecahedron. “Ex… what are you doing…?” I asked, cautiously.
He looked at me lopsidedly for a moment, then his head snaked forward and he swallowed the crystal whole. Waveform and I looked on in shock. He hiccuped, than started to vibrate. We both backed away instinctively as Extralateral’s eyes glowed with bright phosphorescence.
Suddenly he stopped, hiccuped again, and belched. From his mouth came a stream of raw orange plasma. The force of it pushed his head back, raking the beam across the ceiling, which began to shake and crumble around us. “RUN!” I screamed at Waveform and we both cannoned off up the tunnel at the far end of the cavern. It collapsed behind us as we threw ourselves forward onto a small beach at the bottom of huge crystal cliffs before a sea of fluid sapphire.
“Are you alright?” Waveform asked.
“Yeah…” I said looking back at the collapsed cave mouth. “Wait, where’s…?”
Extralateral cartwheeled across my vision, singing a drinking song along the lines of ‘oh they should’a’ just sent the whiskey!’
I gaped at him for a moment then turned to Waveform. We shrugged at each other simultaneously. “Hey, you ready to take us home yet?” I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snorted, “Unicorn horns can be down for days after-”
Extralateral was levitating the crystal sand around him into the shape of a pony. “Are you my friend?” he giggled as the sand pony shrugged at him.
“Well, that stone must have done something right.” Waveform commented. “Well, are you ready to take us home?”
Extralateral cocked his head at him, hiccuping again.
“Right! Grab on!” Waveform yelled to me and we both grabbed the stallion around the neck, disappearing in a flash. With a sound like a plunger being pulled from a sink.
* * *
We reappeared sprawled beside the cart at the back of Wavs’s house, Extralateral rolling across the floor in an impossibly tight ball. Waveform wasted no time jumping up on the back of the cart, locking the new crystal into its slot in the mixer console. He sighed in relief.
“I can still do the concert with Vinyl!” he smiled over at us. “Heh, if Ex didn’t turn up when he did, I’d have had to cancel!”
I looked suspiciously at Extralateral, who was chewing his fetlock happily. I stared carefully into his eyes. “Thank you.”
He tilted his head on one side, hiccuped, and disappeared.
Waveform climbed down form the cart. “Heh, he stayed around longer than normal.” He turned to me, rubbing a hoof on the back of his head. “Listen I… sorry I snapped at you before, what happened was an accident, so yeah… sorry.”
I put a hoof on his shoulder, “Don’t worry about it, you’re just worried about doing a concert with your idol.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Come on, after that I need some coffee.”
* * *
Extralateral was sitting at the top of the crystal cliffs. He was unusually silent, just siting and watching the fire ruby sun set over the sapphire horizon. “You’re welcome,” he whispered, then he threw himself off the cliff, executing a perfect summersault before vanishing in a flash of light, with a sound like a plunger being pulled from a sink.
* * *
“Hello Ponyville!”
It was early evening the next day. The mixer stations of DJ Pon-3 and Wavs stood a few meters opposite each other, in the middle of and empty grassy area on the outskirts of Ponyville. I stood midway between them with Spectrum, Hoofcraft, and Peregrine. DJ Pon-3 was standing on her mixer desk, addressing the crowd.
“Man, it’s great to be back my Scratchers!” her microphone-magnified voice echoed across the crowd. “And it is my great pleasure today to be working with Wavs, who has been taking good care of my homeys’ ears in my absence!” I could practically feel the heat from Waveform’s face. “So without further ado! Let’s drop some bass!”
She launched into a bassy dubstep mix, which cooled off after a minute or two, and gave over the stage to Wavs, who set off a darker, creepier mix. Once that had ended as well, they started trading off riffs, Vinyl adopting a more sophisticated tone and Waveform an aggressive, drum based one. Finally culminating in both playing at once, each vying for control yet still producing an epic harmony. Then they continued mixing songs one after the other for the rest of the evening. Ponies started leaving because of the lateness of the hour.
“Well, it seams the concert is nearly over,” Pon-3 said, looking across at Waveform, “wanna end on a high note?”
“Leave it to me,” he said into his own microphone. “You’re gonna feel this one!”
He reached down and pulled a lever on his console, the front of which split, revealing the anti-resonance crystal inside. It glowed, creating two concentric spheres of magical energy. One around his entire DJ station, the other protectively wrapping around himself.
“Eat rock!” he screamed, then started an electric guitar based rock track. The air between the bubbles of magic rippled, stretching and distorting the image of Waveform as he manipulated the track. Any areas of ground unfortunate enough to be trapped between the bubbles were crushed to dust; the station was actually sinking into the earth as the dirt gave way around it. And he was right, you could feel the track as the vibrations in the ground made their way up your hooves and set into your bones.
Vinyl certainly could, she yelled and launched herself into the crowd, cheering just as hard as anyone else. My new friends where right beside her, screaming and shouting and just enjoying the adrenalin. And me?
I just couldn’t stop smiling.
~ The End ~