//------------------------------//
// Chapter 60 
// Story: The Gate 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

During lunch, Dumbledore blinks once.  He can hear the students still discussing the morning news as he raises his hand to his radio.  “Say what?” he asks.  He’d missed it the first time, being focused on his conversation with Professor McGonagall- who apparently couldn’t wait to experiment with her newfound Equestrian magic powers tonight.
“Princess Celestia would like to visit the castle this afternoon,” the unfamiliar voice on his radio repeats.
He blinks again.
Professor McGonagall raises her eyebrows.  “What is it?”
“Ahh…”  He depresses the button again.  “I’m sure we can accommodate that.  Any particular reason?”  He releases the button, and opens his mouth to answer McGonagall- but stops himself short when the radio comes on again.
“Turns out she has a subscription to the Daily Prophet, and wants to meet both Lyra and Professor Lockhart.  In order.”
He blinks again.  “Isn’t Lyra…?”
“Doctor Horse says it should be safe to awaken her now, so long as she doesn’t try using her horn- and Bonbon knows how to keep her from trying her horn when she wakes up.  They’re headed up to do that now; Celestia plans to arrive in about three hours.”
“Got it.”  He releases the button, waits a couple seconds, and turns to Professor McGonagall, satisfied that the Agent isn’t going to attract his attention again.  “The Equestrian monarch has a subscription to the Daily Prophet,” he informs her.
McGonagall nods slowly.  “Ahh…  I take it they’re waking Lyra up?”
He nods.
“When does she get here?”
“Three hours.”
She nods.  “And when does she want to meet Professor Lockhart?”
“After Lyra.”
“Got it.”





“Got it.”
Ginny lets out the breath she’d been holding, hand dropping from one of the two radios on her robes.  “Are you sure it’s a good idea to make me Dumbledore’s contact point?”
Hermione nods, while somepony- that’d be Agent Skyhawk, the helicopter pilot she’d been introduced to yesterday, that had flown Rita Skeeter in last night to make her article- cites a couple codes onto the radio.  She recognizes at least one from yesterday, right after Lyra had been stabilized- though it hadn’t been Skyhawk that had called them yesterday.
“Case in point,” she scowls.  “I haven’t a clue what she’s saying.”
“She wants to know if Celestia wants news coverage of her visit,” Hermione informs her.
More codes.  “That’s an affirmative, isn’t it?”  She scowls.  “Maybe?”
“Ah, no, actually,” Hermione states.  “That’s a deferral- Celestia wants Agent Starshine to make that call.”
She nods.  “Ahh, that makes sense.”  She’d heard the name ‘Starshine’ amongst the codes, but hadn’t understood any of the codes.
Silence holds for a couple seconds, before Starshine- who she’d also been introduced to yesterday- comes on the line…  with more codes.  Which…  She looks at Hermione.  “I have no idea.”
“If Lyra will be in public-worthy state,” she answers.
“Ahh.”
It’s a few minutes, and half her lunch, later when the radio comes active again- and this time, it’s Bonbon.  A series of codes…  followed by “Math Head, Indigo Sierra.”  Which is instructing her to inform Dumbledore.  She looks at Hermione.
Hermione swallows her latest bite of food.  “Lyra will be public-worthy, she’s deferring to Dumbledore.”
“So, I need to ask Dumbledore if it’s okay if we have Rita along for the visit?”
Hermione nods.
“Got it.”  She goes for her own radio- the one that goes to Dumbledore.  “Ahh…”  She depresses the button.  “Is it okay if Rita Skeeter is along for the visit?”
“Ahh…  Sure.  So long as you’re confident it will be beneficial.”
She looks at Hermione.  “So long as we’re confident it will be beneficial.  That’s a yes, right?”
Hermione nods.
She takes a deep breath, and goes for the other radio clipped to her robes, the one that doesn’t reach only a hundred and fifty feet or so to the most powerful wizard in Britain.
“Kinda funny how that’s the one you’re more worried about using, isn’t it?” Ariel asks her.
She grins, nodding internally, and depresses the button, formulating the codes she needs to use.  “Indigo Sierra, Affirmative.”
“Roger,” Skyhawk answers.
She lets out her breath again.  “Well, so that happened.”
Hermione nods.  “And in three hours, we may have more interviews to go through.  Good thing today’s a Sunday, isn’t it?”





Rita Skeeter scowls at the parchment in front of her.  Good stories have been few and far between, lately- and with this morning’s story being as powerful as it was, she’s having difficulty coming up with anything even remotely headline-worthy for tomorrow’s morning paper.  Today has just been…  well, boring.  The Ministry of Magic has been stonewalling her efforts to get a reaction- well, save one simple message from the Minister for Magic himself, telling her they’re working on a statement and will let her know when they are ready for the press conference.
It had definitely been a surprise, the prior afternoon, when a couple of children had knocked on her front door.
The gigantic, metal, helicopter they had sitting on her front lawn had been an even bigger surprise.
They’d had a very specific request…  and a lot of it required a lot of secrecy.  For example, she was required to keep the helicopter- and their involvement- top secret.
In exchange, she got to be their exclusive media outlet.
At the time, she hadn’t a clue just how lucrative that could be.  They had promised her a minimum of one headline story; as a matter of fact, she distinctly recalls the red-and-yellow-haired girl- Sunset Shimmer- tell her what the story they already had developing was about.  “Oh, Lockhart only nearly killed a foreign envoy.  They’re trying to save her right now.”
So she’d agreed, and she’d come…  and boy, is she glad she did.  That story was pure gold- and, it promised to make more stories, all on its own!  After all, there’s about no way the Ministry of Magic would take it lying down!
…  only, they haven’t given her anything yet, so they might as well have.
A sudden buzzing draws her attention.  It’s the skinny box thingy the pink-and-blue-haired girl, Bonbon, had given her, after refusing to interview as not having been part of it.  The glass side of it is glowing- and words have appeared on it.  “Skyhawk” is written across the top- the helicopter pilot’s name, she’d been told.
She follows the instructions she’d been given, in how to accept the “call”.  It helps that they’d given her an opportunity to practice before they left her alone with it.  She swipes the little green symbol across the bottom of the glass part, and lifts the whole thing to her ear.  “Yes?”
“Hey, Rita,” the helicopter pilot’s voice comes back from it.  “Princess Celestia- the de-facto ruler of our nation- is visiting Hogwarts today, with the intent to meet both Lyra and Lockhart in order, and you’ve been invited.  Yea or nay?”
She blinks, excitement bubbling up in her core.  Their ruler?  The opportunity of a lifetime!  “Of course!” she answers.  Then she pauses.  Hogwarts…  can be difficult to  reach.  “Er…  maybe.  It might take a while to get to Hogwarts.”
“I was thinking I could pick you up at your house in about half an hour, on the way to pick her up.”
She blinks.  “Wait.  You mean, I get to meet her before we go to the castle?  Er…”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Skyhawk answers, a distinctive chuckle entering her voice.  “And yes, we know exactly how rare an opportunity this is.  Um, by the way, has there been any response from the Ministry on last night’s story?”
She shakes her head, before reminding herself that Skyhawk can’t see her.  “Nope, nothing.  I think they’re still mulling it over.”
“Ahh.  Alright then- I’ll be over in about half an hour, then it’s about a half hour’s flight to the Gate- a location that must never be revealed- to pick Celestia up.”
She blinks.  “Why can’t it be revealed?”
“Because it’s deadly for a non-Equestrian to traverse the Gate between our worlds, and we’d like to avoid the temptation to try.”
She blinks.  So, they are a nation from another world, however that happened.  “Alright.  I’ll be ready.”
“Got it!  Oh, and this time around, we’ve got the camera covered.”
“You do?  Awesome!”  Yesterday, she’d had to take her own pictures, because she hadn’t had the opportunity to grab a good cameraman on her way over, and their photographic experts- they did say they had at least one- had been unavailable.





“You must be Rita Skeeter?”
Rita bows to the beautiful woman addressing her.  “I am, Princess.”  It had been comically easy to tell exactly who was the Princess, what with the crown perched on top of her flowing, sunlit hair, even in the shade.
The princess chuckles at her display.  “You may rise,” she indicates, climbing up into the helicopter as she speaks.  “And don’t mind the Guards, they’re only along for appearances anyways.”
Rita blinks.  “Um- what?  Aren’t they, um, guards?”
Celestia nods, seating herself casually right next to her.  “Yep.  Thing is, anything that can so much as scratch me will bulldoze the lot of them, so in Equestria, they serve a peacekeeping role- and when I go places with them, they’re along only for appearances.
“Anyways, while we’re on the way to Hogwarts, I wanted to ask you a few things.”
She nods slowly.  “Ahh, yes.  It’s about last night’s story, right?”
Celestia smiles.
“Fire away,” she invites.
“Alright then, here I come,” Celestia chuckles.  “So, Lockhart first.  Does he normally do that?”
Rita shakes her head.  “He doesn’t normally mess up his spells, no.  Though, the only real account of him actually performing much magic at all comes from the autobiographical series he’s written- and your people assure me he’s a fraud.  So…”  She shrugs.
“Hmm,” Celestia puts one hand to her chin, looking thoughtful.  “This should be fun, then.”