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// Chapter 9: Obligatory Water Level 
// Story: Harmonic Gift From The Stars 
// by DTavs exe 
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The morning after the drinking party with the yaks, Spike woke up to a filthy and messy Castle, surprisingly most of the damage was done by Rainbow, Starlight and Trixie meanwhile the yaks were quite the calm drinkers. Last night claimed many victims including the yak dignitaries, the mane 6, Trixie and Starlight, with all of them out of action for most of the day, it came to Spike to clean the mess.

Spike entered the room, camera hanging from his neck and watched all the disorder, he scratched the back of his head “oh boy, this is going to be one of those days, let's fill my 'after-party laugh album'” he saw Rainbow holding the broom under the table, he thought on a way to get back at her, “what do we have here?” loud enough to wake up Rainbow.

Rainbow couldn’t even open her eyes, just moved her hooves and hugged the broom tighter, “*Ugh* Spitfire, ma’am, I’m off duty, your voice… not... so... loud… pleasethankyou.”

Spike giggled but was not done, “Actually this is Spike and I need that broom to clean the mess all of you made,”

Rainbow still with her eyes closed didn’t move an inch “what broom?”

Spike pulled out his camera and took a photo of Rainbow’s sorry state “The one you are holding,”

She finally opened her eyes at the sound of the camera “come on man, that’s not cool,” she let go of the broom and Spike took it.

Spike grabbed the picture and store it in his pocket, “Don’t mind me, just taking some laugh material for later,” Rainbow let out a sad whimper and fell asleep again.

Spike swept the floor when he found some of the yaks asleep on the hall, he decided to sweep that later, he moved to the foyer that wasn’t that messy besides a purple alicorn hanging from the chandelier “Oh my, this is going to my personal album,” he took several photos until she gave some life signs, “Twilight… you ok in there?”

Twilight slowly opened her eyes and coughed a bit “I… am going… to die… *cough* my throat is dry, my head is killing me, please tell me I don’t have a tattoo this time, removing those is painful,” she struggle a bit to get off the chandelier but couldn’t until Spike helped her down.

Spike looked at her from head to hoof but couldn’t see anything new, “No tattoo this time Twilight, you are still in the castle, let me help you to your room,” Spike helped Twilight and returned to keep cleaning, on his way he found two yaks near the bathroom “Ok, so that makes four of them, only the prince is missing,” he walked through the castle, he could find Starlight and Trixie at Starlight’s room, Fluttershy was on the kitchen on top of a half eaten sandwich, he went to the living room and froze at the sight of Prince Rutherford and Pinkie snuggling on one of the sofas, he quickly took a few pictures, hopping that Pinkie would never find out.


~♥~♦~♣~♠~


Once everycreature woke up, Spike served them breakfast, after that he spent most of the morning cleaning the castle, repairing the furniture that was damaged, ordering replacements for the ones that couldn’t be repaired, restocking the kitchen, making sure the dignitaries left and made sure that everypony was up and galloping before the music box session that afternoon, after lunch Spike was exhausted and decided he would take the rest of the day.

Twilight feeling better now went to pick Spike at his room, “Spike, the girls are here for the music box, you coming?” Spike was on his way out of the room.

Spike was carrying a towel “Nah I pass, I’ll just take a bath and call it a day, I’ll just listen to the recording afterwards,” he passed next to Twilight who shrugged and left for her studio.


~♥~♦~♣~♠~


In the studio, the girls were discussing last night party, sharing what they remembered and filling in the gaps to whoever didn’t remember.

Rarity was pouting at the group who were laughing at the fashionista’s last night antics “I most certainly did not do such an unladylike thing Applejack, why would you say something like that?”

Applejack let out a laugh stomping the ground “Are you kiddin’ me sugarcube? After Rainbow challenge you to a drinkin’ contest you outdrank her,  Ah had to carry your flank to the boutique,”

Everypony laughed even Rainbow shared the good spirits, “Gee Rares, I thought you would feel good that you beat me at this kind of stuff, you really surprised me,” everypony kept laughing everypony except Pinkie that was just looking like she was in another world for some reason.

At that moment Twilight arrived breaking the laughs, “Ok, Spike is not coming, he is relaxing at the moment, so I guess is just us today, ok let’s draw straws to see who is next,” everypony picked their straw except Pinkie who had already picked the last time, in anyway the pink mare seemed to be more interested in the flowerpot next to her, “Pinkie? Are you with us?”

Pinkie’s trance was broken “What, what? No I didn’t... wait, oh hi Twilight,”

Twilight got closer to her pink friend “Pinkie, are you ok? You seem distracted,”

Pinkie was taken aback by the question “Uh? Me distracted? *pfft* nah, I was just in the zone…” she dismissed the question waving her hoof.

“Well ok, anyway, it’s Rainbow’s turn to push the button, I wouldn’t like you to miss it,” both mares joined the group around the music box.

Flying over the box, Rainbow cleared her throat “Ok, let’s start this stuff,” she pressed the button and an ominous sound started playing, followed by crickets and a voice.



Having pressed the button, she returned to her spot “ok that sounds weird, is Central America a place?” 

Fluttershy covered her muzzle with her hooves “Oh my, poor aliens, suffering from a hurricane must be horrible,” 

Starlight nodded sipping her tea “Indeed and with no way to stop it, the damage would be huge depending on the size of the hurricane,”

“Well if it is that dangerous, maybe they don’t have any magic to control the weather,” Rarity added to the conversation at which Rainbow corrected.

“Actually, our weather patrol wouldn’t be able to stop a hurricane either, they are too big, luckily we haven’t had a hurricane in decades, maybe even before we were born, every weather team in equestria works specially to stop any signs that a hurricane is forming.”

“Yeah but that also brings the question, if they were able to control the weather, then they would also be able to stop hurricanes before they form,” Starlight replied, “if you have noticed, most areas outside of equestria that lack any kind of weather controlling magic, tend to suffer from hurricanes as well, so is safe to suggest that at least in this ‘Central America’ they don’t possess that kind of magic” everypony agreed.

Applejack was nibbling at her apple fritter when she added “Hey aren’t they just repeating the same thing over and over again?”

Twilight was sitting next to the recording console while fanning herself with her wing “Yeah and is just me or is getting kinda hot,”

Rarity pulled a little fan to refresh herself “You are right darling, but I think it’s coming from the console.”

Suddenly an epiphany came to Starlight “Eh Twilight,” the alicorn turn to her former student “I think I just remembered why Bocafloja put limiters on his spell and why he carried more than one amulet with him, the spell he used if translating more than one language tended to return a lot of magic feedback to the talisman used,” 

Twilight realized the same thing looking at the console, the magic feedback was overheating the equipment “and if the magic feedback reached critical levels it could make the talisman… EVERYPONY GET DOWN!” she levitated the console and put up a magic shield surrounding her friends and the music box.

Everything looked like if it was happening at a slow motion, the console reached the ceiling and exploded, the boom was strong enough to break the ceiling and part of the wall, the bathroom where Spike was taking a bath was just above them, the explosion was severe enough to make part of the floor collapse, leaving the bathtub, with a very scared and confused Spike, hanging from the plumbing.

Spike was just realizing that he was hanging right above his friends “WHAT THE HAY!”  the pipe broke and the tub started sliding down, “no no No NOOOOOO,” the tub fell with Spike on top of it, breaking when it reached the lower floor, leaving a wet and angry dragon looking at his friends.

With the magic force-field down, everypony was able to measure the damage, Rarity quickly ran to Spike levitating a towel to them and drying him out, “Are you ok, Spikey-wikey?” which he nodded.

Behind them was a worried looking Twilight “that was a nasty fall, are you sure nothing is broken or at least bruised,” Twilight levitated him and patted in several places.

He struggled to get free “come on Twilight, I’m fine, more annoyed than anything, but seriously what the hay happened?” finally free from Twilight’s magical grasp.

“I forgot some of the aftereffects from Bocafloja’s spell, it overheated my recording console and it exploded, I liked that console,” you could see the disappointment in Twilight’s face and on her dropped ears.

Spike finished drying himself and put a towel around him, “I suppose I’ll put an order for a new console as well,” Twilight’s face lit at the prospect of new equipment, “but stuff like that could take at least 2 weeks to arrive,” and once again Twilight’s face got sour again.

Meanwhile Applejack, Starlight and Rainbow Dash were measuring the extent of the damage, there was a broken wall, the ceiling of two floors was broken as well, but what worried the most was the plumbing, “Twilight, Ah reckon we should probably leave the building,” at that very moment, the plumbing made an awful noise, like most of the pipes contorted and then exploded filling the first two floors of the castle with water.

Everyone quickly got out of the castle, Twilight had put spells on her books and equipment for things like this, a spell that will protect her things from the elements like fire and water, but then she remembered there is a particular piece of equipment she never put the ‘elements protection spell’’ “THE MUSIC BOX!” she teleported inside the castle, “Oh nonononono, please be okay,” she found the music box on her studio, unknown to Twilight, the device had some protections in case of getting wet, it was designed to seal itself at contact with water, making it waterproof, and if it detected it was submerged, it will activate it’s floating wheel around it, so there it was, like a little child on an inflatable floater, Twilight, as always, freaked out and pull it out of the water, cradling it on her arms like a baby, “Oh you poor little thing, don’t worry, mama Twilight will save you from all this water,” she knew she should probably not go outside where everypony could see the music box, at least not yet, but she needed to put it on the sun so it’ll dry, she teleported to the roof with a table and left the music box there, casting a spell to make the wind dry it faster then teleported back to her friends.

Fluttershy was the first to talk with a face filled with concern, “Is the music box alright, Twilight?”

“Just a bit wet, now I’m more interested on the creators, they designed for it to float if submerged in water,” she got closer to them and whispered, “this aliens must be really advanced they probably thought on everything,” of course she wouldn’t test the limits of what the music box could stand, that would be reckless and might destroy the machine, “I guess we should all get back home, I need to have the plumbing fixed and the wall repaired,” everypony agreed and get back to their respective houses.

Starlight giggled remembering the mayhem they just experienced, “What a disaster, isn’t it?” both Twilight and Spike laughed at the destruction a miscalculation on a spell could do, “at least everycreature is ok, this will go on my ‘make sure to check every aftereffect a spell could have’ list.”

Twilight nodded “mine too, I guess you are not too old to make mistakes like this,”

On the roof, a solitary music box was now completely dry, usually when a song ended the machine turned itself off for lack of energy, but right now it was on the castle roof and the afternoon sun hit it like water to a thirsty walker on the desert, the screen turned itself on and if ponies could read the strange symbols, they would be able to tell it said:

[OPTIMAL SUNLIGHT SOURCE DETECTED - CHARGING - PLEASE WAIT - 2% - 3% - 4% - 5%]


To be continued