Spike ran into Sunburst's room, without a second's hesitation. He quickly opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. Sunburst sprung up from bed and quickly looked around for what made the sound.
"Sunburst, it's me, Spike," he said, calmly.
"Spike? What are you doing here?" Sunburst asked, levitating his glasses onto his face.
"I've come to help you with Starlight!"
"Wh-what do you mean, 'help me with Starlight?'" Sunburst asked, nervously.
Spike gave Sunburst a doubting look, then shook his head. "I've come to get you two together!" Spike said, confidently.
"'Together?!''
Spike raised an eyebrow. "Come on, dude. I'm pretty sure everyone, except Starlight herself, knows you're crushing big-time on Starlight."
"Is it really that obvious?" Sunburst asked, sighing afterwards.
"Yeah. I'm pretty sure that the only reason she doesn't know, herself, is because she spent so much time hiding her own feelings."
"Look, Spike. I know that you're just trying to help, but Starlight doesn't like me like that. I don't see how she could ever like a screw-up like me." Sunburst hung his head, looking down at the bed below him.
"Come on! You've got to give it a shot. I just know you two are perfect for each other."
"How?" Sunburst asked, turning his head towards Spike.
Spike opened his mouth and raised his finger, but nothing came out. Spike's finger slowly went to his bottom lip as he tried to think. Spike raised his finger again, but almost immediately put it back down. Spike really couldn't think of why he thought that. It was just something he had a feeling about. "I really don't know. All I know is that we should at least try. Think of how much you'll regret it if you never tell her."
Spike had a surprisingly accurate point. Sunburst thought of years down the road, if he never did take the chance. "Do you really think I could win her over?" Sunburst asked.
Spike gave a simple nod and a smile. "Definitely. As long as you're willing to try." Spike extended his claw towards Sunburst.
Sunburst looked at the little dragon before him. Great, if I take his advice, I'm basically taking advise from a kid. Eh, what have I got to lose? Sunburst reached out and shook Spike's claw. "You do make a good point. I just hope you have a plan."
"Oh, of course I have a plan! Come with me!" Spike walked out the room and turned to the left.
Sunburst, reluctantly, followed Spike down the hall to the library, where Spike stood in front of a special bookcase off to the side.
"So, what's this plan of yours?" Sunburst asked, rubbing his eyes.
"This, is where we keep all our books about how to cast magic spells," Spike responded, gesturing to the bookcase behind him. "We're going to find a tricky, but useful, spell, and have you learn it. Then, once you've mastered it, you can use it to impress Starlight!" Spike stood there, smiling, and still gesturing towards the bookcase.
"Okay, what else?" Sunburst asked. "There's more to your plan than just that right?"
"Sure... there's more. I just have to come up with it."
Sunburst looked at Spike, dumbfounded. Really? This was his whole plan? "I'm going back to bed." Sunburst said, turning towards the exit.
"Wait!" Spike shouted, running in front of Sunburst. "I know it's not much, but it's at least worth a shot, right?"
"Look Spike, learning one spell is not going to get Starlight to fall for me."
"Well, how about I give you some advice about girls?"
Sunburst sighed. "Okay fine. It's not like I have anything better to do."
"Yes! Thank you! You won't regret accepting my help. Now, let's go pick a spell." Spike ran off to the bookshelf, and started pulling out random books.
I really hope not.
Four days later
Starlight woke to the sound of a loud crashing down the hall. From what she could tell, it sounded like it came from the library. "Oh, what is it now?" she asked, slowly getting up from her bed. "I swear, if it's another Ponyville disaster, I'm going to pull my hair out."
Starlight looked out the window in her room to see that it was still night time. Starlight huffed and left to check out the loud noise. The clock in the hallway read 12:30. As she walked to the library, she could hear what sounded like struggling and skittering. She sped up and ran into the library to find out what was going on.
When she opened the door, she saw Sunburst, stuck to the ceiling, wrapped up in webs. "Oh, um, hey Starlight," Sunburst said, shakily. "I've got some good news, and some bad news." As soon as he said that, Starlight heard a loud crash behind her. She slowly turned her head to see a giant spider behind her.
The spider towered over Starlight and stared at her with hungry eyes. "Yeah, that's the bad news," Sunburst called from the ceiling. "The good news is, my magic is getting stronger."
The spider hissed at her, and Starlight took off, screaming, farther into the library. The whole room was covered in spider silk, and Starlight could see the spider catching up with her. The spider dived at her, and Starlight levitated herself out of the way. The spider hit its head on a wall, and looked stunned. "Sunburst! What did you do?!" she screamed.
"Well, I was practicing my magic in here, because I couldn't sleep, and one thing lead to another, and I accidentally cast a growing spell on a spider that was in the corner."
"Well, tell me how to reverse the spell!"
"I... didn't get that far before this thing started attacking. But I did see the book I was reading over there by that table."
Starlight looked around and found a green book sitting on the table on the other side of the room. "Well, grab it and cast the counter spell." The spider was started to stir by the wall.
"Well, about that. It turns out that this particular species of spider has webs that absorb magical energy, and, well..." Starlight noticed that Sunburst's horn was covered in the sticky web. "Yeah, I can't really use my magic at this moment."
Just then, the spider got back up and turned around to see Starlight. "Oh, come on. Can't I just get a break?" The spider charged at her again and just barely missed Starlight as she ducked underneath it. She looked at the book on the table and ran towards it, with the spider in hot pursuit.
Starlight dodged out of the way of the spider's leg and tried to grab the book, but it was stuck to the table by some of the spider's web. While Starlight tried to grab the book off the table, the spider tried to take another bite at her, but hit the wall beneath Sunburst instead. The room shook, and the book came off the table with a rip. "Hey! I think that loosened up the webs a little! Do it again, and I might be able to help!" Sunburst shouted down to Starlight.
Starlight lifted the book up to Sunburst, and stuck it in the web so he could read it. "Here, you try to find the spell and I'll distract the spider." Starlight told him, before she ran the spider into another wall.
Sunburst's horn wasn't quite loose enough that he could levitate the book of turn the pages, so he was left with just his mouth. Every so often, Sunburst would feel another shake as Starburst kept trying to knock Sunburst down.
Finally, he found it, the shrinking spell! "Starlight! I think I found it!" Sunburst shouted out.
"Good! Now all we need is-" Starlight was interrupted by the spider swinging it's leg around and smacking Starlight against the wall beneath Sunburst. She opened her eyes to see the spider charging at her again, but this time, she couldn't move. She was stuck on the webs on the wall. Luckily, that was the final push Sunburst needed to come crashing down from the ceiling.
As Sunburst fell, everything seemed to move in slow motion. The spider seemed to move at a snail's pace and it didn't even feel like he was falling. Sunburst quickly read the spell from the book and got ready to cast it. He noticed that his horn was free, and started to focus. Starlight watched, as Sunburst's horn glowed with magic, and shot out a yellow ray that stopped the spider dead in its tracks. The spider shrunk and shrunk, until it was barely the size of a fly.
Sunburst opened up his eyes and realized that the giant spider wasn't there anymore. He tried to jump up in triumph, but remembered that his limbs were still tied up with spider webs and fell over instead. He squirmed pathetically to no avail, and just laid there on his side.
"Well, that was fun," he said, looking back at Starlight.
* * *
About an hour had passed since the whole spider incident, and the two unicorns, with the help of Spike and Twilight, had finally finished getting most of the webs out of the library. Twilight had just left, after giving the two a stern talking to about messing with magic alone, when Starlight decided she was finally going to confront Sunburst about what just happened.
"So, Sunburst, how exactly did you end up using that spell on the spider?" Starlight asked.
"Well, I, uh, I've been practicing that spell for a few days now, and I just couldn't get it right. So, I sort of got a little angry and cast it one final time. Unfortunately, the spell was a little too strong for me, and it went wild, hitting the spider, which would probably explain why the spider was so aggressive."
"Sunburst, why didn't you just tell me that you wanted to learn that spell? We could've practiced it together and avoided something like that!" What the hell was he thinking? He's knows magic can be dangerous!
"Well, I, uh,--" Sunburst sighed. "I wanted to impress you."
Wait, what? Starlight thought, eyes going wide.
"I look up to you, Starlight, and I wanted to show you that our practice hasn't gone to waste." Sunburst looked down at his hooves. "I know it was stupid, and I'm sorry for putting you in danger back there. I just wanted to show you that you've helped me improve, and I appreciate it."
All of that, just to impress me? Starlight pulled Sunburst into a hug. "Don't you dare practice magic alone again. You may not think so, but I care about you more than you think." Starlight said, sobbing.
For a while, Sunburst stood still, before slowly wrapping his hooves around Starlight. "Thank you Starlight, that means a lot." A few stray tears started to run down Sunburst's face.
The two ponies stayed that way for what felt like forever. As she stayed, cradled in Sunburst's hooves, Starlight couldn't help but think back to what Sunburst had said. He risked his life to impress me. Starlight couldn't wrap her head around that. She didn't know how to feel. She didn't know if she should be impressed by his determination, or scared because of how willing he was to put himself in danger. The one thing she did know, was that she was happy he made it out alive. Almost losing him made Starlight realize just how much Sunburst meant to her. Maybe that's why she didn't run and get help. If she tried to get help, Sunburst might be gone, but she didn't want to think about that. Right now, Starlight wanted to enjoy this hug for as long as she could. It was the one thing stopping her from punching him for his stupidity.