The Best Riff in Equestria
A story by Mr.Tibbz

Chapter Three: On with the show

I held the guitar floating near us as we exited the shop and fared for a taxi-pony.

Sieg let out a whistle.

“Taxi! Over here!” Sieg shouted at an incoming pony who had a blinker strapped to his head. The pony was pulling a yellow open-carriage.

“Get us to ponyville, as fast as equinely possible.”

We got into the carriage, which promptly raced towards Ponyville.

The trip went by quite fast and the moon was just slowly rising while the sun set in the west as we arrived at the entrance to Ponyville. It was almost time to start the show.

“Thank you again. These should cover it.” I gave the taxi-pony a hoof-full of bits that was probably more than I owed him. “Consider the rest a big tip.”

Sieg and I then proceeded to gallop towards the town square where we saw that the stage had already been set up. The lights danced and the music was already playing, the audience carrying glow-sticks of various neon colours.

“Do you think we’re late?” I asked Sieg as we galloped closer.

“Not sure. It doesn’t seem as if she’s on stage,” replied Sieg.

Before we knew it, we had reached the stage. We entered through the back to meet up with Vinyl Scratch who had apparently been waiting for us, trying to stall the crowd in our absence.

“Where have you two been? The crowd is getting restless!” Vinyl Scratch half-shouted.

“We ran into a bit of a problem and then we had to-” before I could continue, Vinyl was already behind me, pushing me onto the stage.

“Just play along, alright?” She whispered to me. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but before I could ask, she had already stormed towards her turntable on the upper platform of the stage.

I was situated at the ground level of the stage, somewhere in the middle. The lights above me blinked on and off to the beat of the loud electronic music.

Sieg, in the meantime, was backstage watching the whole thing; he simply couldn’t keep himself under control since he knew I wasn’t prepared even the slightest bit for this show.

I kinda regretted oversleeping now.

“Ladies and gentlecolts! Are you ready for this? Are you ready to drop it to the beat? Are you ready for DJ P0n-3!?” Vinyl Scratch shouted into her mic, causing the audience to go mad, their glow-sticks becoming a multi-chromatic blur of light above the crowd as everypony started waving them around.

“I hope you’re ready, ‘cause tonight we have something special!” As she said that, I knew that I had to be prepared for something; I just wasn’t sure what ‘it’ was.

“Tonight, somepony dares to challenge me! The turntable temptress herself - DJ-P0n-3!” Vinyl once more shouted to the crowd who had, believe or not, become even more restless than before. “The pony present here tonight thinks his musical abilities can rival to that of mine!”

I was getting quite nervous already; I expected something, but not a challenge!

“Let us see how this, lost, confused, over-his-head pony can stand up to yours truly!”
Okay, well that was uncalled for. Suddenly, a light shone upon me, blinding me for a few moments and forcing me to shield my eyes with a hoof.

“Everypony, give it up for Riff Track!” Vinyl shouted. For a moment, I had frozen in place as the crowd suddenly became a little quieter - which wasn’t saying much. I was certain that the background roar of the crowd could still be heard for over a mile - an idea that frightened me more than I would have liked to admit. I tried as hard as I could to give a confident smirk to the audience, but to no effect.

“Let’s see how you can handle these beats, Riff!” I was immediately bombarded by the loud sound of a remixed bass & drum track. I thought I felt my ears go numb before suddenly snapping back. It felt like a blitzkrieg of sound.

“A little too loud for ya Riff?” Vinyl’s continual mocking was starting to tick me off a bit. That’s when I decided it was time to strike back.

I quickly plugged my guitar into the nearest amp, and proceeded to turn it up to eleven. I felt hesitant about doing so, but I felt like I had to fight loud music with even louder music.

“Well Vinyl, I hope you’re ready, ‘cause it’s about to get 20% louder!” I tried shouting to her, only notice that they forgot to give me a mic. Guess they didn’t expect me to actually have anything to say. “Here goes!” With that, I began to play a power chord over the bass in the vain hope It would sound louder and gain the crowds attention.

Attention I got... for a few seconds before the bass’ volume began to steadily increase.

My ears were almost bleeding; I couldn’t handle being this close to the speaker. The stage was literally starting to tremble from the sound.

“You think I was playing at max volume? That was only the low setting!” Vinyl screamed maniacally, as if possessed by the music.

I had to think of something; the crowd was slowly starting to try and boo me off stage, probably seeing me as an interruption to the rave. I had to get louder - much louder.

“I got it!” I said to myself. If I used my magic to increase the amp’s output beyond its limit, I could blast a sound wave from the speakers and steal the crowds attention from Vinyl. It was a risky move, as it could blow out the amp, but I had little choice.

“Let’s make some magic!” I said, grinning to myself.

Sieg was still sweating buckets from the stress of the whole situation backstage.

I quickly began magically amplifying the volume of my speakers, Vinyl raising her eyebrow as I gave her a cocky grin.

My muscles tensed and I was gritting my teeth as I tried to squeeze as much juice into the speakers as I could.

“Done...” I groaned under my breath, exhausted from the ritual.

I levitated my guitar closer to me and tried to ready myself for the inevitable tidal wave of sound I was about to unleash. I took in a deep breath, standing up straighter as I braced myself.

I then struck another power chord.

The ensuing blast of sound propelled me several inches forward, even as I dug the edge of my hooves into the hardwood floor of the stage.

The soundwave vibrated - rather than echoed - through the air around the crowd, everypony's mane rippling backwards as though struck by a powerful gust of wind. Somepony’s even had their glow-sticks blown away by the enormous blast of sound. I continued to play in rhythm to the bass as the roaring wave of sound continued propelling me inches closer to the edge of the stage with each strike of the chord.

Nearby, Vinyl was briefly perturbed by the sudden change in the playing field, the skilled DJ gradually shifting her music into a new rhythm - no doubt to try and throw me off. I took a moment to listen to the new rhythm - as well as to reposition myself further back from the stage’s edge - before gradually and skillfully adjusting my chord to the new rhythm, continuing to keep pace with her.

Now that our instruments were at equal levels of sound, it was truly my guitar versus her beats. Despite successfully matching her new rhythm, Vinyl continued to frequently change the rhythm at random intervals, trying to keep me off balance. I did my best to keep pace her abrupt changes, and for the most part, I was successful, despite being thrown off rhythm a couple of times when Vinyl switched beats quicker than I anticipated. I mean, who switches thirty seconds into a new rhythm? Seriously.

Sieg, meanwhile - amazed by the whole thing - was crying tears of joy as he hopped around like a little foal backstage. I only chanced a couple of glances and couldn’t actually hear him over the music, but I could swear he was chanting something about money from the way his mouth was moving.

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After the show was over and most the crowd had dispersed, I walked backstage. I was promptly greeted by both Sieg and Vinyl, the two exchanging smiles with each other before turning their attention to me.

“Riff! That was amazing! When did you learn how to do that?” Sieg asked, obviously having been completely taken aback by my performance.

“I just focused on my objective. I said I was gonna get loud, didn’t I?” I replied smoothly, offering as innocent a grin as I could.

“Well, you sure surprised everypony - myself included,” replied Vinyl, the talented DJ pony no longer wearing her trademark sunglasses, giving us a rare view of her stunning ruby eyes.

“Thanks!” I chirped, pleased with myself.

“In fact, my producer was actually in crowd. Unfortunately, he’s got some important business in Manehattan, so he asked me to give you his card personally,” she explained as she levitated the card over to us. “I look forward to working with you in the future, Riff,” she said that last phrase in a much calmer voice than I expected after all of her shouting during the show.

“Oh, uh, o-of course! You too!” I couldn’t help but blush at the thought of meeting her again. I can’t really understand why, but her mocking was slightly charming to me.

Sieg and I stood silently as the white DJ pony walked away. After a few moments, Sieg suddenly elbowed me in the side.

“Ow! What’s the big idea, Sieg?” I replied with a grin.

“Oh, no idea. Just felt like hitting you,” Sieg replied in a sarcastic tone.

We both started to laugh and praise our good fortune; we finally had a contact that could get us to the top in no time! Sieg eventually suggested we head on over to the Café and celebrate. My stomach answered for me before I had a chance to even open my mouth.

Later at the Café, we ordered a couple of bottles of the local cider. By the time we had finished them, we were singing makeshift lyrics about our recent success loudly. Before we had a chance to order another bottle, the staff asked us to leave the restaurant. The nerve of those ponies!

Sieg, being the most sober out of the two of us - which wasn’t saying much, and was only the case since I repeatedly drank from his glass when he wasn’t looking - tried and keep me balanced upright on our way, presumably, to our trailer.

It was then - as we trotted clumsily towards the entrance of Ponyville - that I had a sudden, horrifying realization.

“Sieg... di-didn’t uhhh... didn’t we leave our uhm... our uh.. trailer back on the- on the road?” I asked a bit drunkenly while trying to keep my head steady.

Sieg was about to say something, but before he could open his mouth; we saw our trailer, parked right at the side of the entrance.
We trotted towards it, when we saw a letter stuck on the windshield.

“Great show, you two!” Read the letter in an elegant, graceful font. Upon seeing a familiar royal seal at the bottom, we immediately realized who it was from.

“Looks like Princess Luna has a likin’ for this new generation of music,” Sieg chuckled, slurring only slightly.

“Ar.. aren’t we just.. *erp*... lucky?” I added in a mixture of drunken disbelief and sarcasm.

“Yeah... imagine alllll those bits tha’ we’re gonna earn on this record deal! Speaking of which, where’d you put that producers business card, Riff?” Sieg faced me, wobbling only very slightly.

“I uhh, I thought you had it...” I replied blankly, hiccuping shortly after speaking.

We both stared at each other for a moment in thought, another horrifying thought slowly creeping into our heads. Our eyes went wide as we both shouted in unison.

“THE RESTAURANT!”

I’ve never sobered up faster in my life.

We galloped back to the restaurant as fast as we could, too panicked to take pride in having avoided drunkenly tripping over ourselves. We saw the same waiter who asked us to leave standing at the entrance of the restaurant. He turned just as we approached him, Sieg and I slowing down and fighting to catch our breath.

“I do believe you... gentlecolts... forgot this when you left,” the waiter pony said in the most stuck-up manner a sentence could be uttered as far as I was concerned; he even paused a moment before sarcastically emphasizing ‘gentlecolts.’ Fortunately, he presented us with the precious business card shortly after.

“Ah, yes,” Sieg took a sigh of relief, “thank you kindly.”

“At least one of you still has manners,” said the waiter pony. He was lucky that I was too relieved to argue. “Please try and pay us a more quiet visit in the future.”

“Y-yes, of course. Thank you again!” Sieg took the card and we began to slowly walk back to our trailer, significantly more sober than our previous trip. Most of the walk this time, though, was silent, each of us smiling and looking up at the night sky in a thoughtful - and thankful - manner.

After a while, we reached the trailer once again, and the realization that we were about to leave settled in. While Sieg began checking it over and preparing it, I started thinking about all I’d been through in just the past day, and how fun it had been in spite of all the panicking. I also found myself thinking about the kindness of the ponies here, from Aloe cleaning me up for free, to Vinyl agreeing to let us perform with her on the spot.

As I stared at the village, lost in thought, I didn’t even hear Sieg laugh and loudly thank Luna for apparently refilling our trailer’s gas tank. I was snapped back to reality once it started up, and finally climbed into the trailer next to my manager and long time friend.

“Hey, Sieg?”

“Yes, Riff?”

“When are we gonna visit Ponyville again? I kinda want to have my own concert here, you know?”

“Soon, I hope. Let’s focus on getting the bits for that concert before we plan it.”

“Alright. Whatever you say, Sieg.”

The End