Starlight Glimmer was on board with Otto's plan, and would begin teaching him how to use her equalization spell. Being able to rob a foe of their magical ability would be invaluable in combat! However, there was a problem...
"No, no no!" Starlight groaned, trotting up and down the room in which she was teaching the Manehatten mayor. "You're just as liable to blow up or equalize yourself at this rate. Oh, bother..." She poured herself some coffee. It was the day after the night they'd first met, and she'd not wasted any time trying to get Otto trained in her magic.
"I'm sorry." he snorted a response. "I'm surprised I'm having so much trouble with this spell. I'm not exactly a poor magician."
"Well, it would help if I could have a pony to demonstrate the spell on." Starlight quipped.
"You KNOW why we can't do that."
"We don't even have a proper spellbook!"
He huffed, slumping into a chair and pouring some coffee too. "Well, maybe we should take a break for a while."
"Yeah, and maybe you can teach me the Haycartt Method over lunch?"
Oh, yes, that. Much to Otto's frustration, upon the morning that Starlight had first come to his home under the cover of a disguise, she'd decided she wished to renegotiate their position, for she didn't trust Otto quite enough at first: She wanted a straight trade, spell for spell: She wanted him to teach her the Harcart Method, so she could enter books as Otto planned to. Initially, he'd been furious, furious at how she tried to re-write the deal. But, he'd agreed. This had made her happy, and she'd agreed to spend time trying to teach him first: An hour and a half later, they had not made much progress.
"So far, this is all I've got on the Haycart Method." Otto spoke, the pair of ponies sitting at his table in home; he set down two books, his original Haycart book from his collection, old and worn. "Some of the pages are missing. I've got contacts of mine trying to source me a complete edition of Haycart's studies. At this rate, I may have to have somepony break into Twilight's palace and steal her copy... Unless there's one in her tower in Canterlot... Hmmm..."
Starlight, her eyes glittering with gleeful curiosity, had opened the book with her magic, and was keenly looking through its aging pages. "Oh, this is lovely."
"Indeed." Otto nodded. "Haycart Packard was one of the finest writers and magicians of our age. A true innovator by anypony's standards. He was no legendary adventurer and hero like Starswirl, nor an enchanter like Metalbrook. No, he was a writer, and just a lover of good books." She nodded in agreement. "He writes in a way which is quite easy to understand as well. I expect you should be able to perform his spell very soon after we find a complete copy of his work, but you're free to borrow my copy for now."
"Really?" She asked, looking at the tome with no small supply of interest. "I can just, have it?"
"Of course. For as long as you need. I mean, we're friends, right?"
She chuckled. "Perhaps, we're close, but not quite yet."
Otto smirked. "Well, maybe I should offer you dinner? Help push you one way or the other?"
"Dinner?" she retorted. "You're asking me to dinner?"
"Maybe... I'm sure you eat, and I need you to trust me if this plan of mine is going to work."
"So, you're asking me on a date?" she asked. "You've known me for less than a day, and you're seriously trying to ask me out?"
"Hey. Give me credit: I'm a very ambitious pony. And a pony who knows exactly what he wants."
"Hmmm, I don't doubt it." Starlight rubbed her chin with a hoof in thought. "Well, Grand Prince, what would you suggest?
"I don't know." came Otto's reply. "I'm sure anything is better than those muffins you had to eat back home?"
"Oh. Those." She pulled a face. "Twilight and her lot told you about the catering in Ourtown, hm?"
"Yes. The pink one went to quite some length about it. Well, between her giving me funny looks, that is."
"Hm. She always was a suspicious one. She didn't trust me or my town for a moment." She looked Otto in the eyes, a hint of concern hidden behind that rich purple. "What do you plan on doing about those six?" she asked.
"Right now?" Otto frowned. "Nothing."
"Nothing?!" She took a look of shock at his answer. "The defenders of Equestria, an alicorn princess, and easily the most REAL threat we have to face, and you're going to just, what? Ignore it?!"
"I didn't say ignore it." Otto snorted. "No, why do you think I'm being so cloak and dagger? Starlight, they're oblivious. How deep into your clutches did Twilight and her friends slip until they realized they were caught in your trap?"
She chuckled. "Touché."
"All we need to do is keep a low profile. So long as Twilight and her friends do not become suspicious of us, we're safe. The second they start to investigate us, we'll be in trouble. If we're not strong enough to take them on in a fight by the time they're aware of our plans, we are doomed. Simple as that."
She frowned. "You know what. I changed my mind. I would like dinner. I'd certainly like to think about something other than the consequences of having to listen to another one of the princess' lectures should we fail. What did you have in mind?"
"Well, this is Manehatten! We've got pretty much every kind of food on the globe here... Though personally, I fancy Cowrean. I've got a bit of a hankering for noodles right now."
"That's certainly tempting, but I'd say wait until tonight. I want to see if one or the other of us can make any progress on our magic here."
That plan took up the rest of their daylight, with limited benefit: Starlight picked up the Haycart method quite quickly from the pages she had on hoof, though like Otto, she still couldn't yet cast the spell. Otto meanwhile was at least able to produce the spell, though he nearly blew up part of the empty drawing room they were using for practice in the process; he lacked aim at the moment, and it took him so long to actually fire the spell that, in theory, a sufficiently powerful unicorn could raise a shield to block the spell before he had a chance to fire: If that happened, the only way he could get through would be through trickery, or through using enough magical energy to simply punch through a unicorn's shielding. Both options were exhausting for Otto to contemplate after such a long time of practice.
...And so, the mayor of Manehatten, and a former prison warden turned cult leader, went to get noodles. The vastness of Manehatten could not be overstated, so it was easy for these two ponies to quietly blend into the large crowds, as though they were invisible: This was the same town where the Princess of Friendship herself couldn't even hail a taxi. Nopony was going to bat an eyelid at two ponies walking in a crowd, or sitting at a table in a Cowrean restaurant...
The pair had settled down in a quiet booth, where they dined on noodles and stir fry. The rest of the restaurant was pretty busy, the patrons all caught in the sway of watching several of the cooks in their cooking at an open kitchen contained within the square parimiter of the bar, nestled in the centre of the restaurant itself.
"Hm." Starlight nodded approvingly as she took a bite of her food. "Not bad. Not bad at all..."
"Indeed. It's one of the perks to living in a city like mine." Otto agreed. "I suppose you never quite had as much diversity back in Ourtown?"
"Hey. I was never against diversity." she protested, taking a sip of a small glass of rice wine. "We had unicorns, pegasi, earth ponies, all from all over the place... But, everyone had to be equal... Sadly, with their cutie marks went their ability to make foreign quinine..." she sighed. "Celestia above, I missed food that didn't taste like dirt."
"So why did you put up with it?" Otto asked, giving her a look.
"For the same reason as you doing what you're doing." came her response, he saw him smirk slightly at that. "I'll leave you to make of that what you will."
Otto chuckled. "Because you thought it was the right thing to do?" he finished.
"Oh, yes. Of course." She rolled her eyes. "The princesses, the Six, they're all going to make pariahs out of us if they find out about this, you know that, don't you?"
"Of course I do. I told you, this is why I'm keeping everything under cloak and dagger. I even have means to avoid Princess Luna snooping on me in my dreams."
Starlight eye's brightened at that. "Oh? Really? How do you do that?"
Again, Otto smirked, hovering a bottle with his horn, and topping off her drink with yet more wine.
Starlight chuckled, taking the glass with her own horn. "Ah, I see.."
It was here, as their date drew to nightfall, where Otto's habitual night-time drinking proved to be quite helpful: He was very much fine, if a little fuzzy; Starlight however was getting more and more drunk on the same amount of liquor. He smirked to himself: He imagined an Eastern pony could hold her drink better than that.
She wasn't actively binging on Cowrean rice wine, she was only keeping up with Otto, and yet now, in their booth in the restaurant, she had slumped up against the warm, off-white fur of Otto's leg and side. He'd removed his jacket, draping it over her back with his magic.
"It seems you've not drunk in a while, hm?" He asked her.
"Huh, what?" She looked up, slurring slightly as she spoke. "No, no, I'm fine. Just a little sleepy, that's all."
"Of course." He smirked. "And the room's not spinning that much either, is it?"
"Not that much." she nodded. "I mean, oh... blast." She huffed. "Oh, your furs soft..."
"Okay, time to get you home I think." Otto scoffed. "You need to sleep, I think."
"Oh, I could do far more than just sleep right now." She giggled slightly as Otto helped her up. "Especially with those fine flanks of yours."
Otto fought off a blush and smirked. "And you'd slap an equals sign on those flanks the morning after if I did." he replied. "You can take the bed, I'll sleep on the sofa. I don't know if you have digs of your own nearby, but I'm not having you wander around, drunk, at this hour."
And so, the mayor of Manehatten found himself carrying home a very drunk, very sleepy Starlight. His old townhouse was closer than his flat in the city hall, so, while the pink unicorn clung to Otto, whispering suggestive temptations in his ear, he took out his house keys with his horn, inviting her inside. Apparently, Starlight Glimmer was a flirty drunk, and Otto found this amusing, lightweights...
She might well have been very pretty for her stiff, formal appearance, and Otto was certainly tempted to crawl into his bed with her as he laid her down and tucked her in, watching her fall asleep almost instantly. However, while tipsy, he hadn't lost his sensibility; he left her there to sleep off her drink while taking some blankets and a pillow to try to make his sofa more comfy: He also made a mental note to have some water and painkillers on hoof for the morning hangovers they were both inevitably going to have...