Chapter 5: Music Festival in the Park
The six girls had been riding the bus for a good half hour, passing stop after stop. Ember finally asked, "Where exactly are we headed, anyway?"
"I don't know yet," Sunset admitted. "I'm trying to think of something interesting to show you all."
"The library and the museum are interesting!" Twilight suggested.
"Libraries are always interesting," Moondancer said.
"Oh, I agree!" Princess Twilight said.
"Umm..." Starlight frowned. "Not that I don't love a good library, but we have libraries and museums back in Equestria. Maybe something a bit less...indoors and musty, and something a bit more...fresh air and noisy?"
Princess Twilight sighed. "Starlight's right," she said. "We came here to see new things, we shouldn't hole up in some library, no matter how much I want to check out this world's libraries."
Sunset frowned. "Well, I guess we could just go to the mall until I find something more interesting to do," she mused. "I hate to do teen cliches, but..."
"What's a mall?" Starlight asked.
"Oooh, I know this one!" Princess Twilight said, bouncing eagerly in her seat. "It's like a huge bazaar, except...it's more like a shopping district, except it's not like that because everything's all indoors, and..." She paused, settled down, then frowned. "Okay, so I don't really remember that much about it from my research the first time I was here."
Sunset rolled her eyes and smirked. "It's a monument to wasting too much money on things you don't need," she said. "Except for the handful of shops that actually sell useful things. But the places teens hang out are the places they can't really afford to buy anything, so they just spend all day looking. And hanging out with friends. And eating cruddy food at the food court." She paused, then added, "Oh, and there's a movie theater."
"Hmm," Moondancer muttered. "Since none of us have any money, it does sound kind of like a waste of time."
"Yeah," Starlight agreed. "I think I'd rather spend time doing something more productive or..." She shrugged. "I mean, shopping is shopping, right? And window shopping is window shopping."
"How about we visit the mall tomorrow?" Princess Twilight suggested. "We can look for something else to do today."
Sunset shrugged. "Sure, works for me. The trick is finding some—"
A blond head suddenly popped up over the back of the seat in front of her. "If you're looking for something to do today," the familiar voice of Ditzy Doo said as the grey-skinned, wall-eyed girl turned to face them, "get off with me at the next stop, there's a free music festival at the park today!"
The girls looked around at each other and shrugged. "Sounds good," Sunset said. "Thanks, Ditzy!"
"No problem!"
"Weird I hadn't heard about it though," Sunset mumbled.
"Oh, it's one of those indie scene things," Ditzy supplied. "They didn't really promote it to the high school crowd, just the college and club crowds." She smiled brightly. "I only know about it from the fansite for one of the bands!"
"I see," Sunset said. "Well, it's something to do," she decided with a shrug. "Girls, you in?"
"I love music!" Princess Twilight said.
"I guess it could be interesting," Moondancer offered.
"Music is fun," Starlight said.
Ember shrugged. "Music is one of those things dragons don't have much use for, but I'm kinda getting to like it."
Twilight pushed up her glasses. "Something tells me this is going to be a rude awakening, but..." She shrugged.
"Okay! It's settled," Sunset said. "We'll get off..."
The bus stopped.
"...here, apparently." The group of girls followed Ditzy off the bus. They found themselves at the edge of a small, loosely-gathered, decidedly eclectic crowd milling around the cobbled trail leading into City Park, a sprawling expanse of grass, trees, flowerbeds, and ponds which was actually four separate parks merged together.
"Oooh, this is a nice park," Princess Twilight said.
"What's up with that walled-off part over there with the funky gate?" Ember asked.
"The Neighponese Garden," the native Twilight said.
"We're headed for Pavilion Park," Ditzy said. "You girls should check the Garden out later though if you're from out of town!" She looked at them, blinking. "Umm...why are there two of you, Twilight?" She tilted her head. "Wait, you're the Twilight from the Fall Formal, and this is the Twilight from the Friendship Games..." She bit her lip. "Different Twilights?"
"I'll explain later, but yeah," Sunset said.
Ditzy shrugged. "No wonder poor Flash is so confused lately." She shook her head. "Come on, I've got a friend waiting by the Sun Pavilion."
The group followed Ditzy up the cobbled trail into the park proper, weaving through the scattered crowds that were headed in the same general direction. After several minutes, they entered a broad area of the park dominated by four large bandstands, each with its own section of seating. Ditzy led them to a bandstand which was painted in hues of white and bright gold, with a giant sun ornament mounted above the stage. Five grungy-looking guys were setting up on stage. Near the seating section, a blue-skinned, blue-haired girl stood, hands behind her back. Sunset and Princess Twilight stared, eyes wide.
Ditzy waved to the girl. "Hi Sonata!"
Sonata Dusk waved back. "Hi!" She ran up to meet them. "They're starting pretty...soon..." She blinked as she noticed the girls behind Ditzy. "Umm..." She took a step back, eyeing Sunset nervously. "You're...not gonna blast me with magic again, are you?" Her eyes drifted to Princess Twilight...and then to the other Twilight. She gasped. "Eep! Twinsies!"
"Ditzy, you're friends with one of the Dazzlings?" Sunset asked.
"Uh-huh!" Ditzy chirped. "We bonded on the fansite for our favorite band, Angry Taco Sex!"
Starlight blinked. "Angry...Taco...what?"
"Uhh, Ditzy?" Sunset began uncertainly. "You...do remember what the Dazzlings did at CHS...right?"
"Yeah," Ditzy said dismissively, "and the other two are still jerks, but Sonata's cool."
Sonata looked the group over. "Wow, new faces," she said. "What happened to the other Rainbooms?"
"They're off doing their own stuff today," Sunset said. "Princess Twilight brought some friends from Equestria for a visit."
"You don't say," Sonata drawled, eyes narrowed as she leaned in and studied the girls intently. "So, you're all ponies, huh?"
"Most of us are," Starlight said. She pointed at Ember, then at the human Twilight. "She's a dragon, and this one's the Twilight from this world."
"Oh yeah, that whole doubles-of-everyone thing," Sonata said dismissively, straightening up and putting a bubbly smile on her face. "Well, if Ditzy wants to hang out with you guys, I guess I can hang out with you guys too."
"Where've you and the other Dazzlings been since the Battle of the Bands, anyway?" Sunset asked. "It's been bothering me for a while."
Sonata scratched her nose. "Well, things got ugly for us in the city thanks to you and your friends," she said. "So we skipped town. We moved down to Canterlittle, used what savings we had left to buy a little snack shack on the beach. We pretty much live there now. Adagio and Aria aren't great cooks, but they do okay to keep us comfy." She rocked on her heels. "And we're happy being back on the ocean. I guess after all this time being, y'know, evil and stuff, we kinda just needed a place that feels like home."
"Evil?" Ember asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yyyeah, me and these two other Sirens from Equestria got banished here a really long time ago by that unicorn geezer Starswirl," Sonata said. "We kinda had this power to make anyone do whatever we wanted, but we needed to feed on negative emotions to make our power stronger. Basically, we tried to plunge all of Equestria into chaos so we'd have the power to do whatever we wanted, but Starswirl flushed us down the magic mirror into this toilet of a world." She paused, then glanced at Ditzy and Twilight. "No offense."
"Uhh..." Twilight said, blinking.
"Anyway, when Adagio realized there was Equestrian magic at CHS, we headed there to try to steal it for ourselves so we could, y'know, start the whole thing over again." Sonata sighed. "But we lost, and now we don't have any magic." She shrugged. "So yeah, we're beach bummin' it now." She shoved her hands in her pockets.
"Wow, harsh," Ember said.
"Eh," Sonata said indifferently. "I kinda like things the way they are now. I get to spend all day on the beach every day." She giggled. "Guys here are easy to manipulate even without magic! All you need is a sexy bikini."
Sunset smirked. "That's true enough." She looked around; while they had been talking, more people had gathered, and half the seats were full. "Well, looks like things are getting started here, we'd better grab some seats."
The girls quickly found a section of seats that could accomodate all of them. As they sat down, Starlight asked, "So, exactly what kind of music are we here listening to today?"
"Well, Angry Taco Sex is kind of all over the place," Ditzy said. "They're basically a celebration of every kind of rock music." She shrugged.
"They like doing covers of songs nobody's heard in decades," Sonata added. "They've made a whole bunch of songs popular that even the fans of the bands who did them first didn't care about."
"What kind of name is 'Angry Taco Sex'?" Princess Twilight asked, grimacing. "Is that...is that normal here?"
Sunset snorted. "Not hardly."
"Eh, it's more of an indie scene thing," Sonata said with a shrug. "Indie bands always come up with really crazy names. They either get bored with it and quit music after college or they get real jobs or they form new bands that are more serious after a few years and have more normal names."
"You know a lot about this," Twilight said, pushing her glasses up her nose.
"Well, I was a professional musician for like, a thousand years," Sonata said.
Sunset frowned. "You've been here for a long time but you're still, well...a teenager," she said. "Is that—"
"Well, our Siren magic kept us young," Sonata said. "Now that it's gone, we'll probably grow up, grow old, die..."
Princess Twilight winced. "I'm sorry," she said. "If there'd been any other way..."
"You know what? I think I'm okay with it," Sonata said. "Honestly, immortality gets kinda boring after a few centuries." She rolled her eyes. "Besides, it's not like we're gonna just turn to dust and die like that one guy in that one movie. I mean, if we don't get sick, take care of ourselves, all that stuff, we've got another seventy, maybe eighty years. You know, like all these other dumb apes." She glanced at Ditzy and grimaced. "Uhh, no offense."
"SO! Band names," Starlight said with false cheer and an unnaturally large, toothy smile. "You said these...'indie' bands all have really crazy names?"
Sonata brightened up. "Yeah!" she said with a giggle, pulling out her phone. "Some of the other bands playing at this thing are Bifurcated Spork, Bastardcase, Cloven Wiener, Fondled Otter, Hooterface, Pies for the Retarded, Pork Juice, Porpoise Fire, Turdgasm, Toilet Horse..."
As she rattled off the list of absurd band names, the looks of incredulity, shock, and disgust on the two Twilights', Starlight's, and Moondancer's faces grew more comical. Sunset, for her part, just buried her face in her palms, while Ember started snickering uncontrollably.
"There's something wrong with this world," Moondancer declared sourly.
"More like there's something wrong with the guys that came up with those band names," Sunset muttered. "Trust me, that is so not normal."
"Eh, it makes sense if you think about it," Ditzy said with a shrug. "These guys give their bands quirky names to catch attention. I mean, if you hear about a band playing called, I dunno, Flash Drive, you think 'eh', right?"
"Ouch," Sunset said with a smirk and a sidelong glance at Ditzy, then at Twilight.
"But you see something like 'Fondled Otter' and it makes you stop and notice them," Ditzy continued.
"That...actually makes a lot of sense," Starlight said slowly, blinking.
"Ooh, they're starting!" Sonata squealed. Everyone turned to the stage, where the band were taking their places. The singer, a man with light green skin, short, oily black hair, and a scrubby black goatee raised a hand in salute to the audience.
"How y'all doin' today?" he called. The audience cheered. He gave a signal to his band; the drummer counted off a beat, and the guitarists started playing a slow, distorted riff. The cheering grew louder.
As the singer started singing, Princess Twilight leaned forward. "Hey, this is pretty nice," she said.
"Yeah, actually," her counterpart said. "Not what I was expecting at all." She laughed. "I thought they'd be all screamy and grinding guitars and stuff."
"They do some of that too," Sonata said. "Like Ditzy said, they're all over the place. This is one of their slow songs, they like doing a slow one for a warmup and another one for an encore."
"They're not bad," Sunset said, nodding her head along with the beat. "The Rainbooms are better, but they're not bad."
Sonata snorted. "You would say that," she said.
"This is kinda...soothing," Ember said as the song trailed off into a long, slow outro. "Actually, it's kinda starting to make me a little...drowsy..."
And then the drummer shifted into the next song, and a long, loud, overdriven screech came out of the lead guitar. Ember sat up, eyes wide. "Whoa!"
Princess Twilight jumped. "What the heck?"
Ditzy bounced in her seat. "I love this song!"
Starlight's eyes bugged out. "How are they making that...that sound?!"
Sunset stared. "Oh dude, I have got to get whatever pedal that guy's using."
"Pedal?" Ember asked.
"Guitarists use pedals to change the sound going into the amp on the fly," Sunset explained. "I play guitar. I'm not great, but I'm learning."
"Why's he singing like that?" Moondancer wondered. "He was singing so differently before, now it's like he's singing through his nose or something."
"That's just how you do this song," Sonata said.
"This song is loud," Starlight said as the first verse ended.
"Yeah it is!" Ember agreed, bouncing in her seat. "I love this!"
The song continued, drawing a variety of reactions from the girls. Starlight was bewildered by it, Moondancer and Twilight looked like their ears were hurting, and Princess Twilight had a thoughtful look on her face. The rest of the girls were outright enjoying it and were cheering enthusiastically.
The song wound down. "The lyrics of that song were kind of depressing," Princess Twilight said.
"Yeah, a little bit, but who cares?" Ditzy said. "These guys rock, right? Woohoo!"
The singer broke away from the microphone to drink some water, while the drummer did a long hi-hat fill and the crowd cheered. Once the singer was done, he stepped back up to the mic, but pulled a sweatband out of his pocket and slipped it around his head.
"Oh, that's the signal!" Sonata cried, bouncing in her seat.
"Signal?" Princess Twilight asked.
The drummer stopped filling as the second guitarist swapped his guitar for a keytar. The next song was unlike either of the previous, so much so that Princess Twilight had to keep checking the stage to make sure it was still the same band.
"Holy crap this song is shitting the eighties all over the place," Sunset said.
"I know, right?" Sonata agreed excitedly, clapping. "That was me and the girls' favorite decade here!"
Sunset shot her a wry look. "Gee, I never would've guessed," she said.
"Oh my gosh," Twilight said, "this reminds me of when Shining Armor went through his retro phase. So many headbands, so many weird posters..."
"I can totally picture this being the epic soundtrack for one of those metal fantasy movies," Sunset said. "You know, where the hero is like, a techno-barbarian saving his road crew, and he's got a wolf as his spirit animal, and he's fighting laser-shooting robots with a sword..."
When the song finished, the second guitarist grabbed his guitar again, while the drummer counted off a beat. The singer ditched his headband, and the lead guitarist stepped off to the side to adjust his amp. Once everyone was ready, the drummer counted off a fast beat...
The next song was loud, rough, and hard. Ember got more into it than the others, standing up and pumping a fist. Starlight and Moondancer were completely shellshocked; Twilight shrank down in her seat, while Princess Twilight watched with interest.
"Those instruments sure can make a lot of different sounds!" Starlight yelled. "Some of them sound really nice, some of them...not so much!"
Even as she said this, the singer trailed off into grunts as the song ended, and the guitarist began producing an unsettling, helicopter-like noise while the drummer pounded out a heavy beat. The beat and the noise built up to a loud, fast, klaxon-like riff; Sunset, Ember, Sonata, and Ditzy all jumped to their feet and cheered, while the rest of the girls huddled closer together as the singer's voice took on a raw, desperate edge as he screamed the lyrics into the microphone.
"How is he even doing that?" Princess Twilight wondered of the guitarist and the fast, violent noises coming out of the guitar. None of the others heard her.
"This guy's gonna wreck his voice screaming like that," Starlight said.
The song ended with as much bombast as it began, and the audience cheered wildly. The singer went for his water again while the guitarists adjusted their guitars and the drummer kicked the bass drum a few times. When the singer stepped forward again, he took up the microphone. "Thank you," he rasped. He coughed, cleared his throat, then tried again, "Thank you. We got time for one more song?"
A loud cheer erupted.
"What, it's over already?" Starlight asked.
"Well, they have to let the next band play," Ditzy said. "There's at least five bands sharing each stage."
The singer waved a hand over his head, and the audience calmed down. "You guys have been great," he said. "Be sure to check our MyStable page for our next gig if you wanna come out." He turned and nodded to his lead guitarist, who started strumming a slow, soft riff with no distortion. As the song kicked off proper, the rest of the girls stood up, clapping along with the rest of the crowd.
"I like this song," Twilight said.
"Me too," Moondancer agreed. "It's different..."
"It's really good," Starlight said.
"I liked the loud stuff better, but this is good too," Ember said.
As the song ended, the band took a bow and waved while the audience cheered. As the band started clearing the stage, Ditzy turned to the other girls. "Wanna wander around, check out some of the other acts?"
"Sure!" Sunset said. "What do you say, girls?"
"Why not?" Starlight said. "This is turning out to be...really educational!"
"And fun!" Princess Twilight agreed.
"I'm diggin' it," Ember said with a grin.
The group wandered over to the Moon Pavilion, where a new band was just taking the stage. Several seats opened up as some of the crowd wandered away; others were milling around, seemingly undecided as to whether to stay or change venues. As the girls moved through the crowd, Princess Twilight caught sight of a familiar head of spiky blue hair. Her breath caught in her throat.
A light-skinned boy in a dark windbreaker, a ripped white T-shirt, and jeans turned around at exactly that moment. His eyes landed on Sunset, and he waved; then his eyes fell on the two Twilights, and he staggered back in shock, eyes wide.
Princess Twilight rushed breathlessly over to him. "FLASH!"
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AAAAH-AAHHH! Savior of the universe!
(Hey, it's a music chapter - I couldn't not make the reference, right?)
Oh Hey! It's Ditzy and Sonata!
Canterlittle. Nice invention!
The link's not going to something that plays?
Hmm... Ember's sleepiness... Could that be a song to lure dragons to sleep??
And Flash appears! This is gonna get interesting!
Also, all those band names! Lol.
7752540 Silver Quill did it first...
I have to admit, Flash makes me think of that song a lot...
7752551 Canterlittle is a bit of headcanon I use frequently in many stories.
It's a little beach town about an hour's train ride from Canterlot.
Oh, and all the Youtube links work. I double tested them. It might just be blocked in your area?
7752540
My first reaction to seeing Flash was media.giphy.com/media/12XMGIWtrHBl5e/giphy.gif
7752540 I was thinking the same thing!
7752540 Personally Princes of the Universe is better. And the Flash Gordon joke has been done to death.
7752540
Hell I think a Flash Sentry as Flash Gordon fic would be fun ifya pulled if off right.
Interestin' place to end it. XD
Some of the "loud and hard" songs the girls were cringing at, my thought: "eh, I've heard louder and harder." I.e. Byob, system of a down
Convenient Best Human is convenient.
"Met mine back in the seventeen hundreds. She was a pirate! Great stories, but lousy food."
I was legitimately unsure which Twilight was saying that at first. Though I suppose when pony Shining Armor did it, it wasn't retro.
I do love how much Ember gets into each song, and the general idea of using a cover band to introduce the Equestrians to a wide swath of musical styles in rapid succession. As for Flash... Hoo boy, that's going to be complicated.
Ditzy saves the day!
7752698 Well, yeah, but consider the girls themselves. They're way out of their element here. Some people can't deal with even "soft" hard rock like Guns N' Roses.
Oh boy, this is going to be either really good, hilarious or really awkward requiring a lot, and I mean a LOT of explanation. (Probably a bit of all three.)
7752540 I was so close to typing the exact same thing.
what no Dragonforce "through the fire and flames" I think Ember would love that one.
7752823 Epic prog rock songs are a little long for five-and-out hotswap music festivals.
I clicked on
My reaction:
OH MY FUCKING GOD YESSSS!!!!!!
THE BEST THING TO COME OUT OF THAT SHOW!!!!
The night!
BEGINS!!!
TO SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINE!!!!!!!!!!!!
weminoredinfilm.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/teen-titans-go-night-begins-to-shine.jpg
Nice song choices. Ditzy and Sonata do make an odd friendship don't they? Now I look forward to Flash in the next chapter and him reacting to seeing two Twilight's in the same place! This is going to be fun.
That's about right.
... Wanna run that by me again?
Sad part? She's not wrong.
You don't know the half of it.
Ouch, low blow.
Frightning.
With your hair, outfits and personalities, you LOOK right out of the 80s.
Oh, he's here too. Can't say that I'm surprised.
7752693
how so?
I lost it
Poor Flash. Dude can never catch a break, can he?
You know, like this one:
7752540
Flash Gordon and The Flash, the only Flashes worth singing about or fangirling over. Damnit Twilight, stop ruining my sensible ships.
I agree with everything said (both directly and by implication) about the Indie scene in this chapter.
That said... I wonder if Flash is aware of just what a horrible situation that he's now in? I mean, Sunset is okay and Sci-Twi views him as just her "twin sister's" odd stalker. However, Starlight and Moondancer are likely to view him as an experimental resource and Ember is just going to get satisfaction from teasing him on a level previously unknown to human culture.
"Hey, ape-boy; once you do 'dragon', you can never go back to ponies!"
And that's exactly why I think that Sonata is the most dangerous out of the three. She just has this whole cutesy airhead personality thing going on that makes you severely underestimated her, but she's still as devious and manipulative as the others. She's the type of villain you just don't see coming until it's too late.
Of those six songs, the only one I knew was the last one - Nickelback's "Savin' Me" (from their album "All the Right Reasons", which I happen to own a copy of). The rest, I'm kind of meh on.
And can't wait for Flash's reaction to all of the girls.
Until next time...
Anon e Mouse Jr.
So I take it you aren't going with Legend of Everfree's implied drifting apart of Twilight and Flash? I'm fine either way, just curious.
Lol, this is all I see when I hear that song...
7752735 true
Good story, looking forward to more :)
7754783 Legend of Everfree hasn't happened yet in this story.
7755750 I know, but if Twilight is still pining over Flash then Sunset's advice in that movie will be misguided at best.
7755763
I'm not sure it wasn't anyway. Because of the split from main-Equestria, we never got to know if Twilight also feels that she has to get over Flash. Sunset was trying to give the right advice and be supportive, but that involved a lot of not talking to the poeple she was trying to support.
7755763
It was bad advice, and a little jerky, anyway. She was trying to be nice, yes, but telling Flash to "get over Twilight" isn't good advice at all, especially since she doesn't consider how Princess Twilight feels about Flash. Plus, it was after she supported the two being together before. Chances are if Twilight learned what she said she would be pissed at Sunset for interfering with her love life.
I was struck by how you or Ditzy arranged the band names alphabetically. Well, almost. On closer reading, the B's and T's are in the right overall places, but backwards.
7753729 Or the one here: 7754806
7756837
7758048
Yeah, it would have been better if we had seen something that indicated Pony!Twilight also had decided it was time to move on, like if she didn't bother visiting Flash during the visit where she met SciTwi, or a talk with Sunset by journal. I know they probably didn't include it because it would have messed with the flow, but it would have been nice. I guess what I'm wondering is if the next chapter is going to essentially be the scene that leads up to the one in LoE, or if Mythril intends to make a continuity where that scene wouldn't make sense.
All of this music sucks! Nah just kidding I didn't click any of it but Is Flash with someone else now or is it just the 2 twilights freaking him out?
7759314 This is pre-Everfree.
Good chapter. Once it went music fest, I was hoping for covers from GnR, Queen, and KISS. Can't wait to see if Flash's band plays any good songs.
7760866 He's not there to perform. He's there to listen, same as the girls.
7761188 win some, lose some.
Well, if they think Indie band Names are strange, just wait until they mest the punk scene...
In my headcanon, EqG exists in a world where DEATHÖNGUE was real, and Rainbows dad was a fan.
Oh my goodness, I just though of something stupid.
Imagine if someone played We Didn't Start the Fire. Twilight would be happy.
A good portion of this chapter was exposition from Sonata about stuff we already know about...
Eh. I'm not complaining. We got best background pony, so I'm happy.
Also, this literally cracked me up.
That literally means "forked spork"
And we got Sonata...I'm pretty cool with that. She always was my favorite out of the three.
And...
Um...
"Angry Taco Sex"...
...
I got so many bad images in my head when I heard that name.
For some reason I can actually see these songs played at the festival:
Hilarious names of thosebands i have some to: Mustardgasm, Pee on the Stick, Marshmallow Anus, Forbidden Condom, Chessus the Pantsy, etc
I recomend you Sunset: WARRIORS OF TIME FROM BLACK TIDE
7753729
Oh geeze, that was so unabashedly, insanely 80s. Especially the tracking issues.