Chapter Nineteen: The Music In You
CHAPTER NINETEEN: The Music In You
Corey stood frozen as Trixie went to take over another universe. This was his fault. He should have done something to stop her – and save Laney. Laney… The name still haunted him. Her small stature, her red hair, her fiery personality, all of that was gone. And it was all his fault.
He was stuck in place, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Twilight struggling to pull her hoof off of the floor of the cage, and watch Pinkie Pie and Kon communicate with just their eyeballs. Maybe I can try to get free, too, he thought. Not that it’ll help things. Laney’s not around to keep me on track anymore. I’ll just goof up.
Corey?
The orange unicorn twitched his eyes to Twilight again. She was staring straight at him. If you can hear me, Corey, blink twice.
Corey blinked twice.
You should be able to talk back now that the connection is established. I was reading about this spell just before I studied the mirror laws! I can't believe it didn’t come back to me until just now.
How…?
Listen, I need you to tell me exactly what happened after Trixie threatened Laney with that boulder.
How do you know about –
Just tell me.
Corey thought for a moment. I was trying to figure out what to do, and I was getting a little panicky, so I started to sing.
Sing?
Yeah. What else? And it felt like the rope was getting looser, but before I could break out, Trixie…
Twilight’s body shuddered. I know. I’m sorry… Singing…that’s very odd, and very interesting…keep thinking. I can feel Trixie’s spell getting weaker.
Why?
She’s so focused on keeping up the portal spell that she’s losing focus on this one. Corey, can you try to wiggle your tail?
Corey bunched the muscles in his butt (something he’d never really thought about until he suddenly had a tail) and twitched with all his might. His eyes widened as he felt the long blue fur sweep against his flank.
Good! Keep trying. Once everypony else sees us moving they’ll start to, too.
Corey saw Twilight’s ear flick, then her nose wrinkle. He copied her and started to peel his hoof off the ground again. It felt like it was stuck in caramel, but Corey kept trying until it was loose. He pried his teeth apart next, then swiveled his head to glance at Trixie. She wasn’t facing the cage. In fact, the only ponies close by were the two little drippy ones and Mina.
Twilight, is it safe to talk yet? he asked with his mind.
I think so, the unicorn responded. But whisper. Just in case.
Pinkie, Rarity, and Kin were completely free, but Spike was having trouble and Rainbow Dash was still struggling to fold in a wing. Corey walked toward them slowly, like the air was full of Jell-O, but he figured it would just make their movements less conspicuous. “Guys, I don’t think I can help with anything. I’m too messed up to do anything. Laney…”
“I know, Corey,” Twilight murmured, putting a hoof on the stallion’s shoulder. “But the best way to honor her memory is to get you safely home, and the first step to doing that is ridding Equestria of Trixie. With her in control of the multiverse, and Trina in control of your world, you’ll never get a chance to let your feelings out.”
Fluttershy wrenched her foreleg from the bar it was wrapped around. “Corey, I’m sorry about Laney, really I am, but – but I’m glad you’re okay,” she whispered.
“Thanks, Flutters. I was just as worried about you. All of you. I’m happy to see that you guys aren’t hurt,” Corey said, smiling just the tiniest bit. “I just…”
Twilight squeezed Corey’s shoulders. “Let it out.”
The orange unicorn looked helplessly into the purple one’s eyes. “Twilight, I…I think I loved her.”
Twilight opened her mouth, but as if on a Let’s-Torment-Corey schedule, a mocking voice issued from beyond the bars.
“I’ve never seen you this miserable! Like, yay and whatnot!” Trina cackled, her mane tangling in the soft breeze of the vortex. She looked about to explode with glee.
Pinkie Pie growled and zoomed up to Trina. "You're just a big dumb meanie-McMeaniePants! It isn't nice to be happy when other ponies are hurt! And Corey's ten times the pony you are, anyway!" she yelled. Corey jumped. He had never seen the party pony this angry before; it was actually kind of scary.
Trina flicked her tail, eyes narrowing. “Um, no. Corey and his band are, like, über-gross. And he’s always ruining my ideas to be with Nick Mallory and have MY turn in the spotlight!” she hissed.
“Whoever this ‘Nick Mallory’ person is, I see no way he could be attracted to you,” Rarity scoffed, turning up her nose. “Your attitude isn’t deserving of any noble stallion.”
"No offense, but you seem a little clingy," Spike said from his perch on Rarity's back.
“Nick Mallory LOVES me!” Trina shrieked. Her mood had completely flipped from joy to pure anger. “Right, MINA?”
“O-of course, Trina!” the orange Earth pony piped up from the side of the cage.
The pink mare tossed her mane and smiled evilly. “It doesn’t matter what you think, anyway. Soon I’m going to rule the Earth, and EVERYONE is going to love me, whether they like it or not!” A tiny spark issued from her horn and shocked Corey in the muzzle, then Trina stomped away, leaving a cage of confused ponies and a quailing Mina in her wake.
Corey swallowed and took a deep breath. He felt his insides churning, but he knew now that he couldn’t just sit back and watch Trixie take over every single universe ever. Or watch Trina get her crazy hands all over the Earth. “Guys, I never thought I’d say this without…you know, the whole band here…but I’ve got a crazy plan…”
“…that just might work!” Kin and Kon finished together, their eyes lighting up. “There’s the Corey we know!”
Corey wanted to smile, but his heart still wouldn’t let him. “Fluttershy and I are going to pump Mina for information. Everypony else, Twilight will give you the lowdown on what happened with Trixie, and then we’ll meet with everything we’ve got to figure out how to escape. This is about both our worlds now.”
He turned toward Mina’s corner of the cage, and Fluttershy followed him. Her eyes were still wet from her meltdown at Corey’s news. “Do you really think this will work?”
“Mina’s given us information before,” Corey said. “I’m not sure if she knew it was relevant, but she did it. And if she doesn’t, well, that’s what you’re here for.”
He tapped a hoof against the bar by Mina’s head. She leapt about a foot into the air, but turned around, pushing up her glasses. “Oh…Corey. You scared me.”
“Sorry,” Corey apologized. “Hey, just out of curiosity, how much do you know about this Trixie mare?”
“Not a lot, really…she doesn’t tell us much - well, not me, anyway - except that she wants her revenge on Twilight Sparkle and the ponies that mocked her…” Mina said cautiously. “Why?”
“Do you know what it is she and Trina are planning to do with us?”
“I don’t think they’d like me to say anything –”
“Oh, come on,” Corey said. “What are we gonna do about it, anyway? We’re trapped in here. Magically locked in. And don’t we deserve to know how we’re going to…” A picture of Laney’s broken body flashed through his mind, and he faltered for a moment. “…how we’re gonna die?”
Mina gasped in shock. “No! Trixie and Trina wouldn’t…would they? Oh, no, is that what happened to Laney? But they couldn’t have!”
“Don’t you remember all the horrible things Trina did to us back in Peaceville? So much could have backfired,” Corey said firmly. He kept imagining Laney dead and the only way to keep the image out of his head was to stay tunnel-vision focused on what he was doing. “And you helped her with all of them.”
“I didn’t want to! I’m so sorry about everything! I just can’t do anything or Trina will hurt me, too!” Mina wailed, covering her eyes with her hooves and sinking to her knees. “I can’t do any different with her always in my way…”
“Um…excuse me?”
Fluttershy, who had been hiding behind her mane, had spoken up. “I just wanted to say, if you don’t mind, that…that’s my problem too.”
Mina sniffled and looked up. “It is?”
“Yes,” the yellow Pegasus nodded. “It took me a lot of tries, and pushes from my friends, to finally stand up for myself and what I believe in. And now I can pass what I learned on to you.” She smiled, then reached through the bars to place her hoof on Mina’s. “You’ll figure it out.”
“B-but won’t Trina be angry with me if I try to fight her?” the Earth mare whimpered.
“Probably,” Fluttershy said, her voice shaky but strong. “But you’re your own pony – I mean, person – and you deserve to be free of such a rude and unkind mare. Do what you want to do.” She blushed. “Um, if that’s what you want, that is.”
Mina lifted her glasses and wiped her streaming eyes. “Okay…I’ll tell you. But that’s all I’m gonna do,” she whispered, glancing at Trina and Trixie to make sure they weren't looking. "Trina and Trixie have been practicing magic, but Trina's no good at it, so you won't have to worry about her much...is that helpful?" Corey nodded. Mina beamed and continued, “Trina’s also really worried about Nick because we haven’t seen him anywhere this whole time.”
“I personally forgot about Nick,” Corey said. “But then I didn’t have Trina constantly reminding me about his existence all week.”
“You already know that only Trixie can open the cage,” Mina said thoughtfully. “Oh! She really likes to be flattered. And you might be able to use her anger against her.”
“Thanks, Mins,” Corey said. Fluttershy squeezed her hoof one more time, then the two captured ponies trotted back over to the huddle in the middle of the cage.
“Corey,” Twilight said immediately, turning away from a still-yawning Kin. “Tell me again what you said about your world that one night on the train. Besides the fact that you walk on two legs and have, um, hands.”
“Um, we don’t have magic there,” Corey said hesitantly. “What about it?”
“And what did you tell me just now about singing?”
“When I sang, it felt like my bonds were loosening…”
“Exactly!” Twilight clapped her hooves as quietly as possible. “We’re gonna have to sing our way out!”
“And we have the perfect song already,” Kin said, tired but grinning like a maniac. “What song did we write about being trapped in a cage?”
“Stuck in Peaceville Zoo!” Corey said. “ And we don’t even need to worry about new lyrics.”
“There’s only one small problem, sugarcube,” Applejack chimed in. “We don’t know these lyrics.”
“Don’t worry, fair damsel,” Kon said importantly. “We got this.”
The Earth pony began to tap out a rhythm on the metal floor and Kin started humming, but suddenly Corey’s throat was all choked up. There was no way he could be expected to sing. Not anymore.
Grojband didn’t exist without Laney.
A horrible thought flashed through his brain. I'm having mood swings, like Trina. He tried to calm down and go back to his hyper-focused tunnel-vision mode, but it was too late: images he really didn't want to see had already buried him in a wave of pent-up sadness. “I can’t do it, guys,” he gasped. “Not like this.”
Rainbow Dash huffed. “I knew he’d cop out,” she muttered. “All his fault, and I knew he’d cop out.”
The lyrics to Stuck in Peaceville Zoo, at least the beginning ones, suddenly seemed extremely relevant. I’m feelin’ all distraught, held captive in this cage…
How was he going to live without his best friend?
“A little down, Corey Riffin?” Trixie shouted from across the clearing. The portal was still flashing rainbow colors, but now instead of the Earth, Corey saw a blue box flying across a weirdly shaped galaxy. “Missing your little friend? Don’t worry, she’s in a better place now – at the bottom of the ocean!”
Rarity gasped. Fluttershy began to sniffle again.
Corey’s head pounded. For the longest time, he’d been unable to imagine his life without Grojband, but now he was faced with that very problem, as well as a Trina-controlled Earth…he was breathing heavily, he could feel an arm closing protectively around him, then a lot of arms…the others were wrapping themselves around him like a shield…
“Nopony talks to our friend that way,” Twilight said. Corey could tell just from listening that her eyes were blazing. “Nopony.”
The clearing was silent, except for the faint pulsing of the portal in the background.
And then, from a distance, a beautiful melody began to play, one that Corey immediately recognized. It was the song that had played when Trixie had first re-opened the portal. Corey closed his eyes and lost himself in the beautiful music as it came closer and closer. It was probably the last he’d ever hear now that Trina was in charge of Earth forever, so he tried to commit it to memory and make it count…
And then, with the hugest bush-rustle of them all, the music burst into the clearing and karate-kicked Trixie across the face.
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6908302 Okay, so we actually have a good answer for this question:
In this universe, humans and ponies age differently - around age twelve or thirteen, the ponies reach adulthood, and the Mane Six's ages range from twelve to fourteen. Because Corey and the band are all about thirteen, they appear as pony "adults", and so the impression Rarity gets is that they're mature (of course, they're not, but she's easily blinded by her infatuation, as you may remember from her " love" for Trenderhoof).
If you're looking for proof of the age thing in-story, check Chapter Nine. It's pretty subtle - I guess you're right that we could have made it more clear - but it's there:
Thanks for commenting! We appreciate that you took the time to read our story!
- Twi
Hey, love the story! I was just wondering when the next chapter is gonna be up?
7073800 Hi, again - and thanks for being so interested in the story! I apologize for the huge lag in update. I'm going to try to get at least one more chapter up soon - school and extracurriculars have been so busy for me that I haven't been able to work on much of anything, but I will do my best! I feel bad for not working on this. Hopefully knowing that you're interested will get my motivation up!
- Twi