Zombies to Ponies in Ten Seconds Flat

by 8r0ny

31. Wubba-Dubba Death Machine

That subtle ringing, you can never escape. That high pitch tone that accompanies you in your sleep. Yes tinnitus, turns out ponies and changelings can get it too. These are the things that they never covered in the show. The weird part is, I had tinnitus as a human. But it faded when I became a changeling, so slowly that I didn't notice. But now that it was back I noticed it's absence...and I missed the silence.

“VINYL, YOU GOOD?” I asked at a totally normal volume. “NOT SURE HOW IT WAS UP THERE BUT I MAY HAVE LOST SOME HEARING...I ALSO THREW UP.”

She waved from her prone form on the ground. What had transpired was she hit play, some wub happened and she fell down taking her setup with her. Luckily stopping the wubba-dubba-death-machine.

“HOW YOU HOLDING UP BILLY?” I said turning to the...door hole. “O SHIT, THE DOORS ARE GONE.”

At this moment a bright violet flash filled my vision, then another green one. O boy, I was gonna get chewed out wasn't I.

“Shawn, what the hay was that? I thought...you have blood coming from your head.” Twilight whispered, or so it seemed. “O my goodness Vinyl are you ok?”

Twilight ran over to Vinyl and sat her up. She too had blood coming from her ears. Her glasses were cracked, but the craziest thing was the smile she wore. It would have rivaled Pinkies with the amount of sheer joy.

“THAT WAS BUCKING AWESOME!” She actually yelled. “SHAWN LET ME LIVE HERE, I WANT TO BE YOUR DJ.”

Before I could even process her bonkers request, Chloris forcefully turned me towards her with her magic.

“I won't even bother speaking out loud, you have severely damaged your hearing frills.” She said over the link. “I bet you have minor hearing loss and a constant ringing.”

“YAH. O sorry, yah, I had tinnitus as a human...this is worse.” I replied.

“You’re lucky you’re a changeling. Your hearing will be restored by the end of the day, the ringing however will take about a month to fade completely.” She informed me.

“DOPE!” I said out loud again. “HEY VINYL, WE ALREADY FUCKED UP. LETS JUST KEEP GOING.”

Vinyl nodded fervently. Great minds think alike I guess. But like all great minds, we were oppressed by more sensible ponies.

“No no no. That’s not how that works.” Twilight said, buzzkill. “You might heal from this, but Vinyl has some serious hearing damage. And that's scary because she’s been a DJ for years!”

“I KNOW, IT'S AWESOME!” She yelled making Twilight who was right beside her cringe.

“We have magic earphones you know!” Twilight revealed. “They cancel out the damaging sounds while still letting you hear. Why do you ponies not use them?”

“THEY MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A DORK.” Vinyl eloquently put.

“IT TAKES AWAY FROM THE TEST.” I added. “YOU WOULDN’T TEST THE CAPACITY OF A WATER BOTTLE BY TAKING ONE SIP. IT’S ALL OR NOTHING.”

“Twilight, lets just affix the doors. There’s no helping these fools.” Chloris chipped in. “We can at least help the poor ponies outside. No need for them to get hearing loss.”

“THIS IS WHY YOU’RE MY FAVORITE CHLORIS.” I said winking. “VINYL, SET IT UP WE’RE GOING AGAIN.”

She gave me a hoof sign that I somehow mentally took as a thumbs up, and went to work restoring her equipment. At the same time Twilight and Chloris took over the job of the now missing Billy.

“Can you ask Twilight to subtly weave a sound protection spell around the stage.” I asked Chloris through the link. “I do actually worry about her. I’ll heal but she will need outside help.”

My reply was a mental smile. Good, don’t want my new DJ to go deaf after all. Sure she was a unicorn too and might detect Twilight's spell, but I believed in Twilight's stealth abilities. Now with everything in motion to start our third test, I started cleaning up the mess I made. I’ve gotten motion sickness from intense bass before but this was crazy. Exposed to about three seconds at max and everyone went half deaf and I lost my dinner. A good start for sure.

I made a mental note to get some labels and new knobs made for the amps. We need to find the loudest safe volume and set that as ten. Then after that it’ll go eleven, bloody ear, skull. Many would argue that it’s insane to have the ability to get so loud it causes damage, but it’s the same as having a car that can go two hundred, you don't need to go that fast, but because you can it makes you cooler. Or something like that.

“Doors are secured Twilight has made the barrier.” Chloris mentally informed me. “You’re free to do more stupid stuff, but don't expect me to pity you.”

“Thanks Chloris, you’re a doll.” I replied. “And thank Twilight as well.”

“YO VINYL, LET’S FIND THE LOUDEST SAFE LEVEL.” I said turning back to the stage. “THIS MAY BE A LITTLE MUCH FOR THE AVERAGE PONY.”

She popped her head from behind her booth and nodded, the eager smile still present. And her glasses still on even while cracked.

“I’LL SET IT TO HALF.” She replied. “AND WE’LL BUMP IT UP TILL IT’S JUST BEARABLE.”

“MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.” I said smiling. “BY THE WAY, IF YOU WERE SERIOUS ABOUT WANTING TO DJ HERE, YOU ARE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT HIRED.”

“I DON’T WANT TO JUST DJ HERE.” She said, plugging in her last cable. “I WANT TO LIVE HERE. THIS ONE VENUE IS BETTER THAN ALL THE OTHERS I'VE PLAYED AT COMBINED. THE PONIES HERE ARE AWESOME, THE ISLAND IS AWESOME, THE KING IS AWESOME, AND THIS VENUE IS AWESOME.”

“I THINK WE CAN ARRANGE SOMETHING. OUR BORDERS AREN’T QUITE OPEN YET BUT...WELL IT’S TECHNICALLY MY ISLAND AND I’M FRIENDS WITH TIA SO I THINK YOU’RE GOOD.” I said. “OK, LET'S TAKE THIS DEATH MACHINE TO TOLERABLE LEVELS.”

And with that we went to work tweaking the levels to not, you know, kill ponies. Sure it could be argued that having someone that has already suffered hearing loss to adjust levels is a bad Idea...and it may have been but that's a problem we would address later. Time was meaningless for us as we tested. Twilight and Chloris would teleport snacks in every so often and the building had what was basically an apartment in the back for artists to stay in so we had a bathroom, kitchen, and shower. That combined with the lack of windows...unknown to us, two days had passed.

And it really only took a few hours to adjust the levels. Then another couple with tweaking each speaker to get the best sound throughout the club. My hearing had returned a while ago so the levels were good. After that we set up the rest of the speakers and got them adjusted too. All this to say, the two days consisted of about twelve hours of tweaking, planning, plugging and adjusting. The rest was just Vinyl and I taking turns mixing for each other. I had my phone packed with sounds she had never heard before, and she had her library of music. She even made some new human influenced stuff on the fly. She was in her element.

And with sound taken care of, it was time for lighting. I wasn't sure If Camden was finished yet though. We could use a break anyhow. I signaled Vinyl to cut the music.

“I think we could use a break.” I said. “I think sound is good, and it’s time we got some lights in here.”

“So now I get to see you in your element.” Vinyl said smiling. “Will you need someone to mix for you while you program?”

“I didn’t think of that.” I said in mock shock. “Who ever would be willing to play music for hours at a time, while lights strobe and move about?”

“I can think of somepony.” She said bumping my flank with hers before strutting over to the door. She gave me a sly look. “Don’t think I forgot about that kiss either.”

I froze. Damn, I forgot about that. Well, I didn’t remember it in the first place, but I forgot that someone told me.

“O come on, am I that bad?” She said turning to the door and laughing. “Huh, the door is locked.”

“Locked?” I said, shaking off my shock as I trotted up next to her.

Sure enough, there was a big sliding bar lock across the doors. The doors opened inward so it was effective. But how do you lock it from the outside? And why do we need locks? Not a single door on the island had a lock other than this one.

“I think it’s to keep ponies out?” I said sliding it out of the way. “I mean inward opening doors are a fire hazard but after we lost them on the first test I guess it makes sense.”

“But why have such a big bar to block it?” Vinyl replied. “Seems like a normal lock would work.”

“It was a rather quick job.” I pondered. “And the doors weren't originally affixed with a lock. So this may have been the only way to lock them. Still raises the question why was it locked.”

We opened the doors to blinding midday sunlight. Big oof. As our eyes adjusted I heard Camden of all people.

“Finally, you’re out of there.” He said. “We need to do some more soundproofing on the building.”

“As it stands, Twilight had to cast a silencing spell over the club for the past two nights so anyone could sleep.” Cody added. “And anyone within a couple hundred yards still had to deal with the vibrations.”

“What the hell were you doing in there?” Nyjill asked. “The first test you guys did scared the crap out of half the island.”

“Actually I think you heard the second test.” I corrected. “The first test had a polarity issue. Well that and apparently the wires weren't hooked up properly so the largest subs were only getting like a quarter of the power they should have.”

“Billy had blood coming from his ears and he was outside the doors.” Cody said. “Apparently he only had one affixed and was holding the other one in place.”

“Then your test literally blew the doors off the hinges and Billy about twenty feet.” Nyjill added.

“Camden, gotta give you props.” I said smiling. “I asked for crazy, and you gave me crazy. By the way, how are the lights coming?”

“Production was postponed due to the building needing better soundproofing as well as some vibration deadening.” He said simply. “You’re looking at about a week before you can do anything in there again.”

“Nooooo!” Vinyl lamented. “I just found my happy place and you take it away.”

“Damn, I really wanted to get this place opened soon.” I said kicking a hoof.

“Well this will give everyone some time to forget about that little test of yours.” Twilight said. “I don't think any sane pony would walk in there voluntarily after seeing that.”

“You forget dear Twilight.” I said smiling. “We’re humans, and humans are crazy.”

“He’s not wrong.” Nyjil said. “I kinda wanted to go in there but the doors were locked.”

“Same.” Said some random passerby. He noticed our stares and hurried away.

“Case and point.” I said smiling. “Hey Twilight, is Tia or Luna around?”

“Celestia has been waiting for you for a while now.” She said suddenly remembering. “I wanted to get you immediately but she insisted it wasn’t urgent. She’s around here somewhere.”

“Sweet, Vinyl come with.” I said walking off towards our town hall building. “Let’s make you a resident.” And also get your hearing back.

“Oh, buck yah.” She said excitedly.

“I’ll leave the whole bass-proofing to you guys.” I said over my shoulder.

“I do have other things to do you know.” Camden said mildly annoyed.

“But you know he would bother you till this is done.” Cody said laughing. “You’ll get more done if you plow through this. It’ll keep him occupied for a while.”

“I swear, I feel like we babysit our king.” Chloris said. “But, I think we can all agree that he is truly a great guy.”

“I hate it but he’s probably the most qualified.” Nyjill said. “I thought this club was just a side project that he wanted but it actually plays an important role in our nations development.”

“What a world we live in.” Cody said. “And what a guy we get to call our friend.”

Author's Note:

Our beloved club has hit another snare in its creation. But worry not, it'll be bumpin soon enough.
Also I couldn't pass up that name as the chapter title, it was just too good.

Comments

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“HOW YOU HOLDING UP BILLY?” I said turning to the...door hole. “O SHIT, THE DOORS ARE GONE

My brain skipped over most of this so all I read was. "O SHIT, THE DOORS ARE GONE" It was really fucking funny.

[8r0ny]

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You really flew through those chapters. Glad you're enjoying it (at least enough to keep reading). I admit that line and the wubba-dubba death machine re my favorite parts of this chapter. Glad I'm not alone on at-least one of them XD