FLIX’S MUSICAL MANIA
By AlaskaIsCold
Flix was in the green room, idly strumming his guitar as he looked over at the rest of his bandmates. Orlonda was a bright orange changeling, and she was also preparing as well. She hummed several notes in rapid succession, modulating her tone by several octaves, then started dual-octave singing a few lines of no song in particular.
“So... do you know what songs we are going to be singing?” she asked.
“No idea!” Flix replied with an unrepentant grin. “And that’s kind of the point. When using chaos magic, you can never really decide what you want, but you can suggest and maybe it might happen. I can’t say that I want to go from Canterlot to Ponyville, but I can say that I’d like to go south; maybe I’ll intersect Ponyville and maybe I won’t.”
The drummer, a dark-tan diamond dog, spoke up. “Isn’t that a little dangerous? I mean you can go anywhere.”
Flix laughed. “Ah, but what’s life without a little danger, hey?”
The brown and white griffon of the group rolled her eyes. “I’ll never understand chaos magic – it just seems like rolling the dice.”
Flix looked over to his bass guitarist. “It takes the suspension of all preconceptions to fully embrace it, Silvereye. I’m not quite there yet, but I’m close. It’s why I’m one of the few of Discord’s favorite students who can actively cast it.”
Orlonda piped up, “You don’t even have a horn, so how do you even cast?”
Flix stood up and flexed his wings proudly. “Trade secret.”
A teapot on the table suddenly disgorged a very familiar draconequus. He did a flip in the air and landed perfectly before he bowed. Looking over the group, Discord groaned. “My student is doing a concert? How boring.”
“Oh, but this isn’t any normal concert. Tonight we are going to debut the three snap mash-up chaos core!” Flix practically shouted in his enthusiasm.
Discord raised an eyebrow. “Oho, now I’m curious… but I’d rather be surprised. I hope you perform well; your grade depends on it.” He cackled in a way that was entirely too dramatic to be serious before he slipped back into the teapot.
The diamond dog fixed his skeptical gaze on Flix. “I have no idea how you’re okay with him being your homeroom teacher.”
Flix just laughed. “This is going to be great, I hope my parents come!”
# # #
Due to the scheduling of the concert, not all of the herd could make it. Twilight was the first to walk into the main room of the club slash bar. Sunny Day was right behind her, and she chuckled as she looked at the crowd and the opening band which was playing some nice ambient music. Behind the two of them were Roseclaw and a deep-pink unicorn with a white mane.
Roseclaw looked over at the unicorn with a grin. “You just inverted your colors, but I guess it does the trick, Queeny.”
The pink unicorn frowned at her. “Hey now! It’s Pale Petal, and when I heard that one of mine was playing a venue this big, I was curious to see what it was all about. My harvesters tend to get very skittish if they see me ahead of time, and I don’t want to freak her out during her performance.” She ordered four pints from the bar and distributed them so that each pony/ griffon had one.
“It’s been a while since I’ve had a day off. Let’s relax!” Pale Petal giggled.
They all took a deep drink from their oversized glasses before a deep-tan earth pony with a short-cut salt and pepper mane walked up from behind them and said in very familiar voice, “Oh, you all decided to come and see my student’s performance? You can help me grade.”
Twilight look at the pony and groaned. “Discord! Wha–”
He cut her off. “That’s Professor Discord. I do have tenure after all.”
The purple pony groaned, but Pale Petal looked at the earth pony curiously.
“So, do you know what he has planned?” she asked with a hint of eagerness to her voice.
“I do, but I’m not doing to say. I do like to give hints however. I will tell you this: his main singer is a bright orange changeling, and she’s been bingeing on love gel for this performance. Flix has been working on channeling and holding chaos states for this performance. He did something else, but I can’t give it all away can I?”
Sunny Day rolled her eyes and motioned to a spot in the center of the large open area. The group decided to head over there and Discord followed suit, curious to see what his student was about to pull off.
Ponies, griffons, a few changelings and a smattering of other species gathered as the lights dimmed. A well-known white pony with electric-blue hair came into view and they all cheered.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Vinyl’s Proving Ground where the best local talent compete to make it big! Our last act is certainly not the least. They call themselves “Whatever Floats Your Boat”. This group is a mash-up of – get this – a hippogriff, a changeling, a griffon and a diamond dog! I’ve never heard of anything like this! Let’s see what happens, hey? GET ON OUT HERE!” the unicorn yelled as the lights came on to show the group already on stage with their gear. Flix confidently took the mic from Vinyl and he paced around the stage.
“So this is how it’s going to be… you say chaos core and we mix it up! I won’t know what comes next; you won’t know what comes next. If we fly, we fly; if we die, we die. Got it?!”
All the while, the diamond dog was slowly hitting the base drum. He was gradually speeding it up, and as a result, a few of the crowd were already starting to get amped and the chanting began. When a third of the crowd was chanting ‘chaos core’, the griffoness held up a taloned hand. When it got to two thirds, the diamond dog lifted his paw up. And once all of them were chanting, Flix let out a loud growl into the mic as the sclera of his eyes turned yellow and his pupils turn red. “This is Chaos Core!” he declared as he held up his own hand.
All three of them snapped their fingers/talons at the same time, and a wave of smoke covered the stage and the crowd.
Twilight said, {What are they… wait! How am I suddenly speaking Neighponese?!}
A snare drum started up as Orlonda slowly came into view, wearing a Neighponese school girl outfit. Her mane had lengthened extraordinarily and was now tied into dual ponytails. The crowd cheered and moved their glow-sticks in sync with the growing music.
Celestia and Pale Petal were laughing as they said, {This is the best thing ever! So kawaii!}
The changeling started to sing. “Sekai de echiban ohime-sama...Sou iu atsujai kokorote….”
The music came in strong as she pranced around the stage, singing with more and more energy. She twirled and her long pony tails swirled around her.
In the background everyone could see Flix and the griff on guitar with the diamond dog on drums.
Celestia was the most taken by the singing, and she jumped up and down with the rest of the crowd, swinging her glow-stick in time with the music and singing along with the changeling, much like the rest of the crowd.
Twilight was singing along with Roseclaw, arm in arm, but she managed to stop when she saw Discord standing there with a grin, seemingly unaffected.
{How are you not affected by all of this, Discord? Even Pale Petal is getting in on it!} Twilight laughed, almost giddy!
Discord smiled smugly. {Oh, I’m just soaking in all the chaos. Flix has managed to change this entire venue to one of those Neighponese hyper venues… changed all of our clothes, as well as our speech. My best student – I sure know how to pick them!}
The changeling’s singing was starting to come to a close.
“Kocchi no ga abunai wa yo~~!” She let out a high pitch squeal of excitement and faced the band with her back to the crowd which was already cheering.
{CHAOS CORE! CHAOS CORE!}
Flix grinned, lifted his hand and snapped his talons. Once again, smoke rolled over the stage and audience.
When Sunny Day emerged from the smoke, they saw that the unicorn was now dressed in black clothes and belts, with thick eye shadow. She huffed and blew a lock of her dyed black hair off to the side. Pale Petal stood by her side wearing spikey hoof cuffs and a “Destroy Authority” T-shirt.
Petal groaned and rolled her eyes. “They don’t understand! It’s like nobody understands the music. It speaks to me!”
Twilight looked through her jet-black bangs over to Discord who was grinning even more widely now. “Why are you even smiling like that? Don’t you know that’s what they want you to do? Don’t be a conformist! Don’t be a tool for the man.”
Discord just nodded and took a picture of Goth Twilight next to Goth Celestia. “This… this is just too good. He’s getting an A for this… no, definitely an A+.”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “You’re such a drag. How are you not even affected by this?”
Discord chuckled. “Chaos magic is my domain, I choose not to let it affect me, and I’m not jumping around like a git because I didn’t drink the free beer.”
Twilight was about to say something before she was cut off by the strong riff of two guitars. The main stage had changed again into a gothic-like backdrop, and all of the musicians were dressed and dyed in black and white.
The female griffon grabbed the mic and started screaming. “Boy’s got a head like a mana bomb! Hang him from the cross like the number one son! He’s been waiting so long to get it on!”
A mosh pit was starting in the middle of the crowd. They started fighting and pushing while moving around in the center of the room as the female griff kept screaming out.
“Violence for the people! Give the colts what they need!”
“Kill your god… kill your god… kill your… GemVee!” the griffon screeched out as the mosh pit intensified. In the middle of all of it, Sunny and Pale were being pushed and pushing back as they screamed along with the lyrics. Twilight and Roseclaw were busy head-banging to the music.
The song abruptly ended after the last lyrics with the griffon panting out, and the crowd screamed out for more.
Discord nodded in satisfaction as he watched Flix and Silvereye yell out. “ONE MORE! ONE MORE! SCREAM OUT CHAOS CORE!”
The crowd screamed out ‘CHAOS CORE!’ even louder than before, and the venue looked more packed than before. Flix raised his hand in the air... something to cool it down… cool it way down. They couldn’t leave the crowed this amped up on the last set of the night with no cool down. Flix snapped his claw again and the smoke covered everyone and everything for one last time.
When the cloud dissipated, the scene had changed again. It was smaller, more intimate and it looked like everyone was dressed in traditional Griffonian costume. Almost everyone reeked of booze. Flix was in the center and it looked like he was holding a banjo. The others were holding purely acoustic instruments. As Flix started to play, he moved up to the mic stand and starting to sing…
“Well, bugger off, ya bastards, bugger off.”
The crowd yelled back at band. “Buck you!”
“Bugger off, you bastards, bugger off!”
“Buck you!”
Sunny Day and Pale Petal walked over to Discord, each of them were holding a bottle of Eyrish whiskey.
“Why ain't yer drinkin' wi' us?” Sunny Day belted out as she pushed Discord, who was trying his best not to laugh, and not succeeding terribly well.
“Waaat are ye, a wuss?” Petal howled at Discord before they both took a swig from their drink.
Discord looked over to Twilight and Roseclaw who were drunkenly swaying back and forth with the front line of the crowd next to the band, screaming “Buck you!” when they were told to bugger off. The alicorn and griffoness seemed to be holding each other up… barely.
As the song began to cool down and come to a conclusion, the chaos effects gradually wore off. The crowd was still cheering though as the venue and their clothes changed back to how they were before, but the booze they had consumed was very real, and started hitting them all like a brick.
# # #
Celestia woke up with a groan and felt something smooth against her body. She opened up one eye to see Fleur in her queen form, passed out as well, their hooves intertwined. She leaned back to look at the body behind her to see that she was being half-held by Twilight’s wing… while the rest of the purple alicorn was half on and half off the pile of blankets they decided was a bed, her head awkwardly pillowed on Roseclaw’s belly as the griffoness did a great impression of roadkill.
“Ah, so thou art awake finally, dear sister?”
Celestia groaned and turned to look over to see Discord, Luna, Path, Free, Flix, and Orlonda with huge grins on their faces.
Celestia whinnied and rolled back over. “I’ll give you a million bits to give me three more hours of sleep.”
Flix grinned. “Deal!”
They are started to leave and Celestia closed her eyes.
Luna spoke up just as she walked out the door. “We need to get the photographs to the newspaper anyway.”
Celestia’s bloodshot eyes shot open wide.
# # # # # # # # #