Vinyl Scratch's Uninvited Guests

by Soufriere

Part 1 - Sweetie Belle

The house stood on its own block just to the northeast of Ponyville’s city centre – or what passes for it in such a small town. Unlike most homes in the neighbourhood, which tended to be unusually close together in an utterly hodgepodge layout reflecting the town’s long history of lacking proper city planning, this place had been given a wide berth, as if the other houses were actively trying to stay away from it. One would not be able to understand why from its appearance – a modest two storey home built in the same whimsical wood frame thatched roof style as every other house around it, with a mailbox just outside the front door stamped with a pair of barred eighth notes. Really the only thing that seemed out of sorts was that this house’s front door was adorned with a doorbell instead of a knocker.

Sweetie Belle tiptoed tentatively up the three steps to the door, a bead of sweat slipping down her bone-white cheek. Hoof trembling, she pressed the doorbell as gently as possible.

BWRRRRR!! WUB-WUB-WUB! BWRRRRR!! TWEEEEEEET!!! came the sound from inside, muffled more than one would expect, though it was clearly an absurdly loud chime. It was so counter to Sweetie Belle’s expectations that she took a step back in shock… and promptly tripped down the steps.

Once her eyes and brain stopped rattling, Sweetie Belle recovered and stepped – slightly less worriedly – back to the door. What little confidence she had evaporated as she prepared to press the doorbell again, though at least now she knew what to expect. Luckily for her, just as she reached out her hoof, the door opened.

Sweetie Belle found herself face to face with the house’s occupant, a white unicorn mare like herself, but older, though probably still younger than Rarity. Like Sweetie Belle, the mare had a two tone mane and tail. Unlike her, this mare’s mane was neon, cut short and styled in a severely modern fashion; her tail was the same – a shorter version of Rainbow Dash’s tail style, Sweetie noted. She wore violet-tinted glasses that almost entirely obscured her eyes, making her mood impossible for Sweetie to read. Most importantly, at least to Sweetie Belle, the mare had a cutie mark, identical to the one on the mailbox. Sweetie recognized her.

“Oh, hi!” Sweetie said, chipper but still tentative. “You’re that pony my big sister hired for her fashion show last year.”

The mare nodded her head, expressionless, proving Sweetie Belle was not insane, at least not on this point.

“So, uh, I was just in the neighbourhood and, uh, I…” Sweetie trailed off as the mare cocked her head in confusion.

Realizing her faux-pas, Sweetie remembered her manners. “Oh right. Uh, my name is Sweetie Belle. What’s your name?”

The mare opened her mouth, coughed, then grimaced for a second as her horn emanated a magenta aura and she levitated a small whiteboard and marker over to herself. In below-average penmanship, she wrote, “Vinyl Scratch”.

“Hi, Vinyl. C-can you not talk?” asked Sweetie, genuinely concerned.

Vinyl sighed and shook her head no.

Taking a deep breath, Sweetie continued, holding up a catalogue. “I’m sorry to bug you this afternoon, but it’s that time of year again, th-the time for Filly Scout Cookies! Me and my friends are trying to get our cutie marks, and we figured merit badges might be a good start (pretty sure we haven’t tried this one before). So we’re going around the neighbourhood taking cookie orders. But I didn’t know you can’t talk, so if you want me to leave, I’ll just go.”

Vinyl tilted her head down, appearing to stare into Sweetie Belle’s big, green, puppy-like eyes for a moment. Then she smiled as she slowly turned to go back into her house, beckoning Sweetie to follow.

“Oh. Thank you!” replied Sweetie as she cantered into the house.

---

The interior of Vinyl Scratch’s home was, to put it lightly, a mess. Surfaces had clearly not been dusted in several months. Random papers littered the small living area taking up most of the non-kitchen part of the ground floor, along with piles of plastic wrapping, packing materials, and cardboard boxes large enough for a grown mare to fit inside. In the middle of the room, in front of a disused dusty green sofa, sat a coffee table adorned with things that were not coffee… and possibly not legal in Ponyville.

“Yo-your place is…nice. It looks… lived-in,” Sweetie said, trying her best to make conversation with the mute Vinyl.

Vinyl coughed. She frowned again and quickly scrawled a note on the whiteboard for Sweetie to read: “Lost my voice”

“Oh, that’s awful. Do you need me to help you find it?” asked Sweetie with utter sincerity.

If Vinyl had been capable of speech, she would have been left speechless. Instead, she face-hoofed.

Sweetie Belle cocked her head at this, her brow furrowed, a slight frown on her face. Before Vinyl could write out an inquiry on her board, Sweetie’s expression abruptly changed to upbeat.

“I’ve got it!” she said in a near-scream, her voice cracking. “Filly-Scout Cookies may be a great medicine, but it’ll take a couple of weeks for the boxes to get here. In the meantime, I’ll help you get your voice back!”

“Please Don’t.” Vinyl wrote as quickly as she could, waving the board in front of Sweetie’s face just to ensure she noticed.

“But…” Sweetie’s countenance drooped just as quickly as it had perked up a second before, “I want to be useful.”

Vinyl nodded slowly. She scratched her chin for a minute. That was enough time for Sweetie to swing back to confident.

“Ah! Don’t you worry, Ms Vinyl Scratch! I got this,” Sweetie said with a smirk, a firm determination behind her words, as she trotted up the stairs.

Vinyl Scratch made it to the upper floor of her home in time to see Sweetie Belle open one of the three doors in the short hallway. Inside, Sweetie found a room in such a state of disrepair as to make the living room seem immaculate. Sheets and random accessories were strewn about the place. A floor lamp in one corner was covered by a checkered blanket. There appeared to be a bed against one wall, but it might have been a trash pile. Various food wrappers, bags, and cans of drinks Sweetie was too young to try filled in the gaps where the wood floor might have otherwise been visible. In one corner lay fifteen broken alarm clocks. The single window was covered with a light blocking curtain. A washbasin on the wall nearest the door had become home to a rapidly growing species of weed.

“Shoot. I’ll never be able to find a lozenge in all this mess,” Sweetie muttered to herself. She turned furtively and trotted to the door across the landing. Vinyl attempted to stop her from opening the door but failed.

Sweetie Belle’s eyes went wide as she beheld the room’s contents. It was a second bedroom, again with a single window, but devoid of everything except for a mass of musical equipment. Two six-foot-tall speakers flanked a setup complete with two analog turntables, a mixer in between, a box for connecting all of that together in addition to a microphone and headphones, and a little synthesizer for inserting extra sounds into songs on the fly. Everything was edged with neon blue glowy material (currently not glowing) and emblazoned with Vinyl Scratch’s distinctive eighth notes cutie mark.

“Wow,” Sweetie said, stunned out of anything more coherent. What is that?

“It’s My Setup.” Vinyl wrote on the whiteboard, her face failing to conceal a grin.

“That’s so cool! No wonder Rarity hires you. It’s like you’re—Oooh! What’s that ??”

Sweetie Belle’s eyes had wandered and set themselves upon an object opposite the window. It was a cube, about three feet on each end (not counting its locked wheels), completely black, and perfectly smooth except for a single large red button on top. From her childish vantage point, Sweetie could barely see the button; she quickly realized she could reach it if she jumped.

She shuffled toward the mysterious cube, her mind devoid of any thought but “button”.

Vinyl noticed Sweetie’s movement and tried to call to her, but all that came out was a pathetic croak. She levitated the whiteboard and hurled it at Sweetie, realizing halfway that possibly destroying her only current method of communication was a bad idea, and so stopped it mid-hurl to place it gingerly down on the floor.

In the meantime, Sweetie Belle hoisted her front half onto the cube for ease of button pressing. “What does this button do?” she asked as she pressed it with a satisfying ‘click’.

At once, the room began to rumble. The cube opened up underneath Sweetie Belle, causing her to drop back to the floor, whereupon she found herself staring at twelve speakers – eight from the book-like front of the cube and four more that had popped out from the back. Before her mind had the time to process this, however, they activated.

BWRRRRR!!! WUBWUBWUBWUB-BWRRRRR!!! WGWGWGWG-WUBWUBWUBWUB-BWRRRRR!!!!

That bass line was so substantial and loud that it knocked Sweetie Belle off balance, sending her tumbling backwards, head over hooves, until she crashed through the wall, falling to the ground ten feet below and taking a significant chunk of wall and window with her.

Vinyl Scratch, unable to stop Sweetie Belle’s unintentional defenestration, ran toward the newly-created hole in the side of her house, her glasses falling off in her hurry. Outside, all she could see was a pile of wood and glass partially obscured by a cloud of dust. She moped over to her bass cannon and pressed the red button again to deactivate it. After the speakers had retracted, she could hear – as best as a professional nightclub DJ can hear at any rate – the gaggle of her neighbours that had gathered outside her home to rubberneck at the wreckage. She also heard a rustling of wood and glass and a high-pitched voice coughing as its owner exited the destruction with only a few scratches.

“I’m okay!” Sweetie Belle called out weakly.

Author's Note:

In case you're curious, here is my rant for this story.

Comments

[bahatumay]

I think I like where this is going.

[Shimmeradmirer]

*wipes tear from eye* Oh man...that is just perfect. I mean if this is what Sweetie Belle gets into, I can't wait to see what damage the other two or *gulp* all three at once do.

Discord must be so proud of them.

[silverthorn]

This has potential.

[Jonny Bench]

Sweetie bell, how many times have you been told not to push buttons in a strangers house, without asking permission first