Sugarcube Corner’s front door swung open, ringing the bell and interrupting the conversation the ponies inside were having. Rainbow Dash and her five other close friends all turned to look at the door, as did the three young Cutie Mark Crusaders. The shock of bright blue spiky hair that entered the bakery prompted Scootaloo to rush over with her eyes wide open in excitement.

“What about you, Vinyl Scratch? How did you get your cutie mark?”

“What?” Vinyl backed up defensively against the door as it swung shut behind her.

“We’re trying to see how everypony else got their cutie marks so we can figure out how to get ours!” she explained. “Rainbow Dash is friends with you, so you’re pretty cool. How’d you get yours?”

“You sure you want to hear this story?”

“Sure we’re sure!” Sweetie Belle jumped in.

The reassuring smiles of the older ponies convinced Vinyl to proceed. “Alright, fine,” she said, skirting around the fillies and taking a better storytelling position at the center of the room. The mares politely gathered attentively at the back of the room while the eager fillies scrunched up together at Vinyl’s hooves to hear.

“Ever since I was old enough to know what music was, I knew I wanted to get involved in it somehow. I used to go to all kinds of rock concerts and stuff when I was young. I’d listen to any type of music I could get my hands on with this old phonograph we had in the attic. The faster and cooler the beat was, the better.

“I was…oh, maybe a bit younger than you when I went to a big outdoor music festival in Fillydelphia where they had a DJ playing instead of a band. I’d never seen anything like that before, so I watched, and I loved it. The colt on the turntable was OST1NAT0, a rave legend, even though I’d never heard of him before. He was playing this hideously loud and repetitive bass beat—I later found out that it was his signature—and it had everypony up on two legs jumping and bouncing so hard the ground shook.

“I almost died it was so amazing. Imagine the loudest, strongest, most in-your-face music you could ever hear, so loud you had to keep your ears flat against your head or you’d go deaf, all with thousands of ponies moving and shouting with the beat. For a young little filly like me, I couldn’t imagine anything better. I just stood there, too amazed to even dance, and stared at the DJ behind the table and imagined how good it must feel to be up there, playing the music that controlled the crowd, subtly influencing their thoughts and feelings just by playing the right combination of sounds. It was an art form like no other, and OST1NAT0 was a true artist.

“But just then, when the music was reaching its apex and the speakers were about to explode with volume, this huge rainbow burst across the sky in a blinding flash of color, and half the ponies there fell over on the grass and dirt. OST1NAT0 fell onto his turntable and reversed the record, and his music started playing backwards for a few seconds until he got back on his hooves and frantically put the track back together like it was.

“Everypony jumped up and cheered even louder than they had before—the whole thing had just been part of the show. I was so stunned by the color and the music and the atmosphere of that event that I decided right then and there that I’d become a DJ pony myself one day. That’s when my cutie mark appeared, two backwards eighth notes to remind me of that day. I went to a whole bunch of OST1NAT0’s concerts after that, but he never did the rainbow effect again. I was lucky to be at that concert, the first, last, and only time he ever knocked over an entire crowd of ponies with his music.”

“Wait a minute,” Scootaloo squinted. “YOU had a big rainbow flash in YOUR cutie mark story, too?”

Vinyl’s eyes looked confused, even behind her purple glasses. “What, ‘too’? What do you mean?”

Rainbow Dash stepped forward. “She means that when I was a filly, I raced a couple colts to defend Fluttershy after they were teasing her. That was the first time I made a sonic rainboom, a big awesome rainbow explosion you can see for miles. It was so awesome it got me this bad boy.” Rainbow posed with wings flared, emphasizing her flank and the thundercloud and rainbow lightning bolt emblazoned on it.

“We all saw that sonic rainboom, and it caused all of us to earn our cutie marks, too,” Twilight Sparkle further explained, much more modestly. “It was a symbol that we were magically linked, even before we met.”

“But…I saw a rainbow too,” said Vinyl. “Does that mean it was the same one?”

“Yeah it does!” Rainbow boasted. “There’ve only been two sonic rainbooms in history, and both of ‘em were mine.”

“So that means…” Vinyl trailed off for a second as the full implications of that story hit her. She’d always loved music and wanted to be involved in it, but feared she’d never get the opportunity and had even considered giving up and finding a practical career. But OST1NAT0’s performance had been so incredible that her cutie mark had appeared solely due to that rainbow explosion and the music being played. In that moment her fate had been sealed—she was to become a DJ, and even though life since then had been a constant uphill battle from one gig to the next, Vinyl wouldn’t trade it for anything. And all of that, in addition to the help lining up gigs in Ponyville and paying for her expenses, she owed to Rainbow Dash.

“by Celestia, Dash, you’re the one who convinced me to become DJ-Pon3! I…I wouldn’t even have a musical career if not for you. You’re…you’re amazing!” Vinyl rushed across the room and crashed into Rainbow, nearly knocking her to the floor. She pushed her muzzle into Rainbow’s neck, pulling her close in a tight hug.

“Hey, don’t mention it,” Rainbow dismissed. “I’m just that awesome.”

“You certainly are.” Vinyl would never allow anypony else to know, but she was actually close to tears.

Next Chapter: Chapter 9 Estimated time remaining: 24 Minutes