//------------------------------// // Chapter three: Hotel // Story: Song of Despair // by Blizzard Breeze //------------------------------// “Time to wake up Spike. It’ll be a few minutes till we reach Manehatten.” Spike opened his eyes, looking up at Twilight as he straightened up on the seat. “Hey Twilight.” He said, gripping the gem tightly. “Where are the girls?” She placed her hoof over his head and said, “The girls are getting our luggage, you’ll reach Manehattan in a few minutes. Hmm, it looked like you had the chills for a moment.” Twilight said with a smile. “Seems like you slept well, want to help get our bags sorted out?” Spike gave a nod and said, “I’ll be with you in a minute, I need to use the restroom.” He said, then got off his seat and ran down the car, closing the door behind him. Checking back to see that Twilight wasn’t in sight, he looked upon the colorless gem. “Had you been responsible for that dream? Was it even a dream?” He questioned as he tried to make sense of what he experienced. “How will I explain this to Twilight? There has to be something more to that dream,” Spike stared at the gem, wondering what he should do. “If I have another dream like before, I need to tell Twilight about it.” The train slowed its momentum, signaling to him that they were on Manehattan’s doorstep. “Hey Spike, come on,” Rainbow Dash called out, “We need to make sure Rarity is alright.” He opened the door as Rainbow dashed to him, scaring him to stumble back and fall down. “Sorry Spike.” Rainbow grunted as she helped Spike back up. “No problem. So, what’s the plan?” Spike asked as she placed a piece of paper in his claws. “You and Twilight will be looking for the hotel she stayed in, the paper has the address on it. Me and Applejack will go ask the director that hired her while Pinkie and Fluttershy will check the stores where she buys her fabric. Sounds like a plan?” Rainbow suggested, and smiled at Spike. He nodded, heading out of the car into the bustling station. Rainbow tossed him up onto her back, flying up as Spike scanned the area. She searched through the mix of colors, spotting a mix of purple and blue together. “It looks like I found Twilight and Coco over there.” Rainbow began descending towards them, allowing Spike to make out another pony with Coco. He was wearing a white scarf matching up with his snow white mane, his coat colored icy blue with a worried look on his face. “Me and Coco have been looking for Rarity for the past two days, we were hoping she would be here.” Spike heard as Rainbow got closer. The stallion turned his head and smiled upon spotting them. “You must be Rainbow Dash and Spike right? Rarity told me about you. Tell me, have you happened to see her while you were flying?” They frowned and nodded.  Losing his smile he let out a sigh. “Well, we can go check her hotel again.” “You know the receptionist won’t allow us to see her room.” Coco said, getting a confused face out of Spike. The stallion hoof palmed his face. “I forgot about that. He did mention he sent the music box to my father’s place, right?” “I think so, Breeze, I still wonder why Tale didn’t allow us to listen to it, and why she gave it to Rarity confuses me even more.” “Who knows, but it is with my father I hope. He knows his way around antiques. Now, sorry for not introducing myself. I am Blizzard Breeze, a close friend to Coco and I recently made friends with Rarity before she vanished. The three of us were working with Page Tale to help make a musical she had written come to life.” Rainbow put Spike down, resting her wings upon landing. Twilight gestured Spike over and asked Coco, “You mentioned something about a music box, what is all that about?” “We don’t know, Page Tale found it five days ago. She has been acting weird since then.” “What do you mean by weird,” Spike asked, confusion visible on his face. “Everypony else at the stage has heard it but the two of us haven’t. After she sent the music box to Rarity, she wouldn’t allow us to hear its song. Then, she broke all the mirrors at the cinema. In fact, to the extent she took mirrors out of several scenes that had them. Something is scaring her but she says we wouldn’t believe what she had seen.” Spike listened intently, but could make little sense of it. What’s there to be scared of a music box? He thought. “Wait, this music box you mentioned, was it at the hotel?” “Yes it was, but it should be at my father’s shop now,” Breeze answered. “ If you’re going to check the hotel, be careful. The receptionist has become a little hostile and has kicked everypony out.” He turned to Rainbow, “Have you seen where the rest of your friends are?” “No, but Applejack and I are going to find the director and ask them where Rarity was last seen.” “She should be at the cinema. Take these.” He took some keys out of a bag and tossed them to her. “She locks the doors during practice and maintenance. Good luck, hope you all find Rarity.” “Thanks, you two.” she said as they walked out of the station. “Time to get going, I got to catch up to Applejack. See ya later,” Rainbow dashed out, leaving Twilight and Spike to their own devices. Spike walked along with Twilight out into the bustling streets of the city. Carts passed by as they traveled, the two having thoughts spin around in their heads. This feels like something big is happening. Twilight thought to herself as Spike stared into space. All this about a music box, Page Tale smashing mirrors and the removal of them. Something is up and I plan to find out. The hotel was in their sights. Suddenly, a blue cart pulled by a pony of the same color and wearing a magician’s hat passed them. One of the wheels hit a puddle in front of them, which splashed both Spike and Twilight. “Hey, how rude!” Twilight shouted as the cart sped away. Shaking off the water, she got a look as it went around the corner. “Hey, that cart looked familiar. Was that who I thought it was?” Spike shook, while he wiped the water off the gem he still carried and himself. “If it is her, I hope she is not out to cause trouble. Especially now.” he said, as he inspected the gem to make sure all water was off. They approached the hotel entrance and looked through the windows before entering, seeing nopony waiting for them, bags left on the floor, giving her the feeling that the ponies rushed themselves out.  \ “Hello, any pony there?” She called out, with the sounds of shouts and pans crashing to respond to her. Twilight looked at where it came from, as a stallion wearing a red uniform came crashing through the door and slammed it shut. “Ugh, for the last time you two you can’t-” He stopped his line of thought when he looked at Twilight and Spike, revealing one of his eyes was bandaged up and had wounds around it. “You’re not Coco or Breeze. Well if you came to get a hotel room, you’re out of luck.” He said walking to the counter, placing a key on a rack behind him. “I don’t have rooms to give you, this place is going to be closed till further notice.” “Actually, we were hoping you would answer some of our questions. It’s about Rarity, we hope you could help us.” Twilight asked and the stallion looked at her dubiously. Meanwhile Spike eyed at the key the stallion hung up. “I’m Twilight Sparkle. How long was Rarity here? And what happened to your eye?” “I’ll just be upfront with you, you won’t find anything on Rarity here. I’m sorry to answer your question. She was here for six days before she disappeared just like I told Coco and Breeze. You are not going to find anything here. Also what happened was a work accident. And that is that” Twilight looked at Spike, weirded out by the answer the stallion gave. “Alright, but can we take a look at Rarity’s room? Can you give us that?” She asked as he shook his head. “ But how can we figure things out if we can’t?” “Tough but I can’t help you with that, you are going to have to look elsewhere.” Twilight turned around and walked over to Spike, bringing him close to her. “For someone who has nothing to hide he mentioned that we won’t find anything way too often.” Spike nodded in agreement, looking over to the key hanging behind the guy. “Good to see we’re on the same page. Now I’m going to provide a distraction, I’ll keep him as busy as I can.” She looked at him warily, walking to the door he came out of. The stallion rushed over, blocking the door and pushing her away. “This is off limits, I know this is the restroom  but, if you want to use one you will have to go somewhere else.” He said harshly. “You can’t be serious right? What’s back there then?” She asked, having his attention. Spike took the chance and sneaked past the stallion and quickly grabbed the key. Eyeing the stairwell door, he turned his back to it and slowly walked backwards, claws tucked firmly to keep the key from sight. The two ponies began to shout at each other, causing him to speed walk and quickly open and pass the door. “You are getting on my nerves, miss. Wait a minute,” He looked around the room and peeked outside. “Where’s the dragon?” Twilight backed up a bit as he looked to see the key was gone. “Oh you little son of a donkey, you two are full on morons!” He sprinted past Twilight to the door and she leaped onto him, toppling Spike to the ground as he struggled to get up. “What’s going on? What are you trying to hide?” Twilight asked, as the stallion refused to answer. Instead headbutting her nose, causing her to recoil off and allow him to get up and charge into the stairwell. Spike heard the clopping of the receptionist’s hooves and looked down to see the stallion running up after him, causing him to run up the stairs as fast as he could. Twilight entered the staircase and teleported up to the second floor, following suit as the stallion caught up to Spike, grabbing him and shoving him against the wall. “You have no idea what you two are getting into! Give me that key!” He shouted, trying to rip it out of his claws. “Leave Spike alone!” She called out, her horn lighting up with red and purple sparks as she cast a spell  on him, causing him to release Spike. She shouted out, “Go Spike! This guy is not going anywhere!”, readying up another spell as he ran up the stairs. The stallion turned to her, anger boiling as Twilight cast the spell on him. Smoke surrounded his face as he shook himself around and opened his eye that turned black as night, with black tendrils spilling out of it. Upon seeing that, Twi recoiled back and readied up another spell. He leaped onto her, powering through the spell and pushing her to the ground, her face filling with anger as she struggled on the ground. She tried to kick the stallion into his chest, but he didn’t budge a bit. Readying her back hooves, she let out a kick to his stomach and grunted.  A scream came out of him as he recoiled after the kick, allowing her to push him off and give her some space. He didn’t recoil for long as his hooves wrapped around her head, throwing her against the bars of the railing. Dazed by the blow, Twilight couldn’t keep up after the stallion as he took the chance to run up to find Spike. “Room 405, where are you…” Spike runned around the floor, looking at the numbers at each door until he found it. Rushing to unlock it, he entered and locked it behind him. Vibrations curas through his tail, causing him to look at the gem which gave off a slight glow. “Huh, wait.” He said putting it into his claws. “You’re glowing like in the dream. Wait a minute.” He looked around the room, seeing the desk next to the window. Sewing machine is set on it with a stand right next to it. Pieces of fabric littered the room around him. He ran over to the desk, looking through the drawers. “Gotta be something in here.” tossing junk out as he grabbed a crumpled piece of paper. “Yes, Rarity was here.” He held the letter that was sent to her. Reading it, he looked around for the music box mentioned. “Looks like the box is not here. Hmm what was that stallion trying to hide?” He searched the room, checking under the bed and going through all the fabric laying around. Nothing. He thought, eyeing the closet as the gem kept on glowing. He walked over to the closet, the sounds of strangling coming to his ears. He rushed to the closet door. The gem glowed like crazy when he did so. “What’s going on with yo-” Spike stared into the closet, its wall and floor coated in black. He stared at it, confused as the gem started to blind him. “This is what he was trying to hide? Why are you going nuts?”The crunching of wood hit his ear, causing him to spin around to it. The stallion busted his way through, smashing the door to pieces.  Twilight jumped on his back, and tried to stop him from entering. But as much as she tried, he tossed her off and threw her to the wasked. Out of fear, Spike clutched the crystal in his claws and held it infront of his mouth and breathed fire through it, targetting the stallion’s face. The stallion screamed, as dark smoke emerged from the gem, seemingly sucking the light out of the room. Spike looked at the gem surprised, and smiled, breathing the fire once more. The stallion’s quickly recovered though, and dodged the second blast of fire, and knocked the gem out of Spike’s claws. “Hey! Not fair!” Yelled Spike, and proceeded to slide and punch the stallion into his belly. The receptionist grunted, and threw a punch towards the back of his body, where Spike emerged from. The strike luckily missed, as Spike jumped onto his back and held his mane. “Twilight! Fetch me the gem!” He called. Twilight nodded, and ran towards the fallen gem. “No!” The stallion commanded, and jumped high, making Spike lose his grip and fall. Twilight managed to reach the gem, but the stallion was already halfway there. “Catch!” She called out, but her pupils shrunk as she saw Spike laying on the ground, and the stallion charging into her in full force, sending her flying across the room into the wall. “Spike...” She breathed out, as she saw the stallion approaching helpless Spike, before her vision turned black.