//------------------------------// // Chapter 19: Growing Pains // Story: Harmonic Gift From The Stars // by DTavs exe //------------------------------// At the Castle of friendship, three little fillies were sorting Twilight's entire book collection, a punishment agreed by the Sweetie Belle's parents, Granny Smith, Scootaloo's aunts and Twilight, for leaving to the fair on their own. They spent the last few days after school pulling the books, checking and documenting their condition, finally putting them back on their respective place while either Twilight or Starlight were supervising. Today it was a bit different, they were almost done so they were taking it slower and other thing, today Spike was their warden, he was more entertaining than the two older mares, Twilight usually tried to teach them stuff, Starlight tell them stories but usually they end up in a lecture about how not to be evil. With Spike it was different, he tells jokes, brings them snacks and he was pretty fun to spend to. ”Ah can't believe we're almost done, Ah was startin' to think that we'll be doin' this for the rest of our lives.” Spike let out a chuckle, ”come on Apple Bloom, it has been like what? five days? six with this one, you are doing great for your first time though, I remember it used to take me at least two weeks with Twilight to organize her entire collection when I was a small runt, lately only takes us three days tops,” he threw a cookie in the air and caught it with his mouth, ”hmm, fwe arf ouf of foofies *gulp* I'll go get more they should be ready about now.” The young dragon left to the kitchen so the CMC took a break and had some juice, ”after finishing today, I don't want to see a book, in like forever,” Sweetie Belle said then sipped from the glass. Scootaloo lay on her back on the floor, ”I know right, I've even had a nightmare about books and to think that she read every single one of them.” ”Ah reckon' she might be some sort of genie.” ”I think you mean genius, Apple Bloom,” the white filly corrected her friend. ”Ha! You are still a dictionary, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo said still on her back with eyes closed. Sweetie let out a raspberry, ”that's all you get, I'm too tired to even think about a good insult,” she levitated the glass and drank the remaining of her juice. Apple Bloom watched her unicorn friend, ”hey Sweetie Belle,” she said and her friend turned to see her, ”you've gotten pretty good with that, magics y'all unicorns use.” Sweetie Belle smiled at the praise, ”thanks AB, I practice every day and now I can do a few more spells besides levitate things like illuminating my horn to read at night, some weak heat spells, a healing one, kinda weak too though, Starlight taught me accelero that I used on Harmonizing Heights, OH! a transmutation spell too, look,” she pointed her horn to her glass and concentrated her limited mana reserves and casted a spell on the item turning it into a teacup, ”ouch, it kinda stings a bit, Trixie taught me that one.” ”That's so cool!” the other two fillies said at the same time. Scootaloo stood up, ”wait a minute, didn't you teleport that teen pony Biscuit back on the fair? that was even cooler!” Sweetie Belle rubbed the back of her head blushing, ”yeah I gotta admit that was actually a fluke, I know the theory but I've never been able to cast it before, maybe my grown up body could do it and even then my horn was out of commission for hours after that, I don't know how Twilight and Starlight can do it all the time.” ”Well they are pretty strong magicians, Ah reckon in time, you might be able to it as well.” ”Speaking of strength, what's the heaviest thing you can lift, Sweetie Belle?” ”I dunno, I've never tried to lift anything heavier than a few books.” ”Can you lift me?” asked Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle channelled her spell and successfully lifted the pegasus, ”yay , awesome.” ”How 'bout me?” Sweetie Belle put down Scootaloo and now lifted Apple Bloom with a bit more difficulty, ”come on, Ahm not that fat, right?” ”Don't worry AB, pegasi are naturally lighter than earth ponies,” this made Apple Bloom feel better, ”ok, now a challenge, how about THE WORLD!” Scootaloo pointed at the wooden Equum Globe. ”Alright, here goes nothing,” the white unicorn filly channelled with all her might, the sphere began levitating, ”it's... too... heavy...” Sweetie Bell felt her mana reserves draining under the strain, until they were depleted and she let go of the sphere, it fell on the table, rolling on the floor almost hitting the fillies. ”It's heading to the studio, we gotta stop it!” Scootaloo ran next to the wooden ball. The globe hit the doors opening them and got in the studio, a loud thud was heard and then nothing else. ”Rotten apples. We ain't supposed to get in there.” ”We weren't supposed to play with the big ball either, I say we go in there, get the ball and then get back here, easy peasy lemon squeezy” Scootaloo said putting herself in a start position. ”The hay it will be easy peasy lemon squeezy, it will be hard hard lemon hard!” the unicorn said still rubbing her horn trying to recover from her mana exhaustion. Apple Bloom put a hoof on Sweetie Belle's shoulder, ”there is no other way out Sweetie, but we need t'be smart 'bout it, we need a plan, right Scootaloo?” The pegasus wasn't listening to anything they said, ”ok chums, let's do this SCOOOOTAAAAAALOOOOOOOOO CHAAAAAAARGE,”  and ran full throttle inside the studio. ”Oh my gosh she just ran in... ” ”Scootaloo, we need a plan!” The other two fillies ran behind the pegasus who tripped on something and rolled on the floor, the place was dark beside the dim light coming from the other room, the other two also tripped and rolled behind their friend, ending upside down on the wall next to the wooden globe they were looking for. ”Dagnabbit Scootaloo, you dodo” the earth pony yelled at her friend. ”We could have broken something Scootaloo and now we will be grounded again for this you flamingo!” ”At least I'm not a chicken hehe” Scootaloo said while trying to get up and see with the limited light coming from the door, ”hey can you turn on your horn light?” ”I think I can, lemme,” Sweetie grunted and her horn illuminated the room, ”I'm tired, can't hold it longer, find a light switch,” she asked and Apple Bloom quickly found the switch turning on the lights. They were greeted by the mess they made, the ball hit the wall making a painting fall on the ground, which they tripped when they entered the room, no damage was done to the globe or anything else, but most important, they found a huge thing in the middle of the room covered by a blanket. The three fillies stared at the blanket until Sweetie Belle talked, ”what in Faust's name is that?” ”Ain't that the thing Applejack and the others come see every other weekend?” ”You think? I was convinced they came to do grown up stuff like doing taxes,” Scootaloo said. Sweetie Belle shook her head, ”why would they do their taxes every two weeks?” the other two fillies shrugged, ”what is doing taxes anyway, I heard doing them sucks.” Scootaloo grabbed the blanket with her mouth and pulled it revealing the music box and the console, ”what are you doing? we're goin' t'get grounded for the rest of our lives!” The pegasus let go of the blanket, ”well, we are already here, we might as well check this out, come on, don't tell me you are not just a little bit curious about it.” The other two CMCs looked at each other and nodded, both pulled a few pillows to reach the console. They examined the device to satisfy their curiosity, Sweetie Belle pressed a button turning it on the console, ”I think this is one of those thingies artists use to record music,” the three of them then turned to the other object, ”but I have no idea what this is.” ”Well there's a button there, let's press it y'all.” The three fillies reached for the button, they were about to press the button when they heard someone clearing his throat right at the door, they scrambled and fell on each other in front of the dragon holding a tray filled with cookies, they did their best to put on their most innocent smile but Spike rolled his eyes and let out smoke from his nose, ”fillies please, I still use the puppy eyes once in a while, that doesn't affect me,” he put the tray on the ground and flew to the console, ”alright, no damage and the music box is off, you girls are really lucky, if you pressed that button you will be soooo busted, stay here and don't move, I'll be right back,” the dragon flew out of the room for a few minutes and came back with a bag, ”ok, now you need to promise me you'll never tell anypony that I let you use the music box,” the trio was confused. Scootaloo rubbed her head and asked, ”what do you mean with music box, Spike?” Spike smiled, ”well you see, eventually Twilight was going to invite you to check this out, but again you need to promise me that you will never tell a soul that I let you play with this before Twilight gave the ok, understood?” the CMC pinkie promised and he was satisfied with that, ”ok, from the beginning...”the purple drake told them about how the huge metal sphere fell on the town outskirts, the purpose of the music box while changing the tape on the console, the fillies paid attention to the whole thing, theirs mouths open most of the time hearing the fantastic story, ”... and that's pretty much it, Twilight will probably tell you the same thing when she invites you, so act surprised then, capisce?” they nodded, ”we don't have much time before Twilight comes back, so why don't you press it at the same time?” the CMC scrambled again and pressed the button at the same time, bringing the music box to life at the sound of an electric guitar. Scootaloo clapped her hooves, ”that sounds AWESOME!” The unicorn filly enjoyed the song, ”yeah it's great, but why wouldn't they grow up? Grown ups have all the fun.” Spike snorted, ”yeah right, even if we can do more stuff than you, it brings even more responsibilities.” ”Come one Spike, you ain't that much older than us.” ”Well not that older but still older and I don't have as much free time as you might think, sometimes I wish I was a child again, I remember the only responsibility I had was behaving properly and doing a few chores, now I'm responsible for so many things that make my head spin, luckily Twilight let me off the hook when I ask.” ”That sounds awful, now that I think, my sister is pretty busy all the time and that stresses her out, filling orders, sewing clothes and managing her shops is pretty tiresome.” ”Yeah, Rainbow is busy all the time too, with being a wonderbolt and all.” ”And Applejack is always busy as well y'all, boy being a grown up sucks, maybe we're better of bein' children.” ”Yeah, sometimes being a child is better and that song is not giving a good picture about being old, even if it sounds good it's bumming me out,” Spike laid on his back with a long face, ”you know, I had to grow up really fast to help twilight, I couldn't enjoy much of my childhood since my only two friends were Shining Armor and Twilight. That's why I do stuff like this, like sneaking behind her to play with this music box, it kinda makes me feel like a kid again.” The CMC surrounded Spike, nodded at each other and then gave him a hug, ”don't be sad, Spike, we think you are awesome and if it's worth something, you don't feel like a boring grown up at all,” Scootaloo said and Spike smiled enjoying the hug. There they stayed enjoying each other's warmt for the remaining of the song. Once the song stopped they broke the hug and Spike pulled the tape from the console and put the one it had before, ”well, I guess this is yours, hide it on one of your saddlebags, here Sweetie Belle, this scroll has indications on how to send me messages, it's not hard at all, I'm sure you can learn it, whenever you want to come listen to a song, send me a scroll and I'll reply it if Twilight is not here,” they grabbed the tape and the scroll, and put it on Sweetie Belle's saddle bag, ”so now, let's fix this mess and finish sorting those books.” The fillies groaned at the same time but did as they were asked, they finished just as Twilight entered the room accompanied by Rainbow Dash who was playing with the capirucho, ”hey girls, I see you are done, right?” the fillies and dragon nodded, ”great, Spike I need your help right now,” she then turned to the CMC, ”Rainbow Dash will take you girls home.” Rainbow snapped hearing her name, ”wait, no session today?” she asked putting away the wooden toy. Twilight shook her head, ”not today, everypony is busy doing other things and me too... wait, you are not too busy, right Rainbow?” Dash shook her head, ”well, why don't you let the fillies listen to a song, you can explain them the origin of the music box and all.” ”Wait, me? aren't you supposed to listen to every song?” ”I'll listen to the recording afterwards, besides, I'm sure they deserve a reward of some sort after doing such a great job, come on Spike maybe if we hurry we'll be back on time to listen to it,” the purple duo left the room but Spike looked back and winked at the fillies. ~♥~♦~♣~♠~ A few minutes later after Rainbow Dash attempted, to explain everything about the origin of the music box, they were surrounding the device sitting on pillows. Apple Bloom whispered to her friends, ”we're lucky Spike told us about this before, Rainbow Dash sucks at explainin' sciency stuff, y'all” Sweetie Belle giggled meanwhile Scootaloo pouted, but she knew Apple Bloom was right. ”Well, if anypony has a question raise your hoof,” the trio shook their heads, ”great, I'm awesome at this as well, so if you are ready, why don't you three, press the button together?” the three fillies approached the music box and pressed the button for the second time that day. Rainbow Dash returned to her seat to listen to the song, “it seems to be a song for child… shaking his WHAT! Oh, on their what? Oh I see, BWAHAHAHA!” she laughed at the lyrics meanwhile the three underaged fillies watched her confused. “Ah don’t get it, what’s so funny? It ain’t even rhyme.” The other two fillies shrugged and kept listening, the older pegasus lay on the floor laughing her cutiemark off. Scootaloo snapped at a word of the song, “hunt? So they are predators, like griffons or dragons,” she said scratching her head. “It seems that way, hopefully they don’t hunt ponies hehe, sizable home? Couldn’t they just say big home? The entire song doesn’t even rhyme, it sounds like they are about to say something that rhymes but then they say something else,” Sweetie Belle began to get annoyed at the song lyrics. At that moment the last line of the song played while Twilight and Spike entered the room, even if the CMC didn’t understood the double entendre of most of the lyrics, they knew enough to understand the last phrase even if it was censored, all of them stood there with their mouth open, even Rainbow knew that last part went too far. “Was the song telling us to go f-” Scootaloo began but was immediately silenced by Sweetie Belle’s hoof. The white filly held her friend, “let us never speak of this again,” she said and the pegasus nodded, all the others kept staring at the music box.  Twilight had an eye twitch but went to cover the music box, “ok girls, I want you to forget all about that last part, would you do me that favor?” all of them nodded and Rainbow took the fillies to their respective homes without muttering a single word for the rest of the trip. To be continued