The Starlight Broadcast

by ponyfhtagn

Pt.1 - Chapter 27

The curtains were closed in the hotel room when Rarity came back; which cast everything in a dirty-orange glow. Spike was there already, either packing or unpacking his backpack. No disguise—just a dragon—and Rarity winced when she saw the black scar tissue of his left arm again.

The creaking of the door made Spike look up. “Hi,” he said softly.

He shut his backpack and sat on the end of the bed.

Rarity walked briskly inside and closed the door behind her. “Ask me how I did.”

“I think I know the answer,” Spike teased.

Rarity burst with joy. “I did it! I did it! I’m in!” She jumped around the room. “I’m starting next week! I’m going to live in Canterlot and I get to go to school with Moon Dancer and all the others!” She pranced on the spot for a bit. “Oh. That’s who I was talking to—Moon Dancer. Sorry I was late getting back, but she came to congratulate me and we just started talking. I know we don’t have much in common when it comes to magic and books, but she’s probably the most intelligent pony I’ve had the pleasure to talk with and she knows all about Canterlot.”

“That’s really great,” Spike affirmed. “Moon Dancer could use a friend.”

“Mm. Speaking of,” Rarity said, calming down now. “How did things go with Rainbow Dash?”

“Pretty good,” Spike said. “I saw Fluttershy again. She helped me sneak in.”

“See? I told you you needed me,” Rarity said. “From now on if you’re going to sneak into buildings I insist we go together.”

“Aaaactually,” Spike admitted.

Rarity eyed him suspiciously. She looked over at Spike’s backpack and her ears fell. “You’re not packing to go home. Are you? You’re packing to stay.”

Spike nodded. “I have to go see Twilight.”

“So you’ve found her then?”

“Yeah,” Spike said. “She’s in the palace.”

“All this time and she was in the palace?” Rarity exclaimed. “Why didn’t Shining Armor just tell us that? What’s with all the secrets?”

“I think she’s in trouble,” Spike said, looking down at his claws. “Something about a magic book that she wasn’t supposed to have. Or maybe a spell she wasn’t supposed to do.”

“Ooo, I hope she didn’t turn herself into a newt or some other slimy thing.” Rarity shuddered. “But Spike, I… We have to catch the train back to Ponyville. My parents… And I’m running out of gems and bits. We have to check out of the hotel before sunset.”

“It’s okay. I’ll catch up,” Spike said. “In a few days. I just… I stayed away from this place for so long and, well, now look at what’s happened. I should have been there for Twilight. Maybe she’d be okay now if I had just been braver.”

“Spike. Yesterday we fought cake monsters,” Rarity said. “I think that’s pretty brave.” She suddenly remembered. “Oh! I did hear some more news about that.”

“Yeah?” Spike raised an eyebrow.

“Apparently it wasn’t just the library at the Gifted school,” Rarity said. “There were also cake monsters in a few other major libraries around Canterlot. It’s as if those monsters were actually trying to destroy all the books. It’s most perplexing. Of course they were easily defeated by the various unicorns who frequent those libraries. The literary casualties, as it were, were few.”

“Does anypony know where they came from?”

“Nothing I heard about,” Rarity said. “Moon Dancer had a few thoughts, though. She gave me a list of facts. One – they were made by powerful magic. Two – they had a mission: to destroy the books. Three – they dissolved back into cake slime after a few hours. That’s it.”

“Huh,” Spike said. “Moon Dancer sure pays attention.”

“Mm. I’m hoping to know more when we come back in a week.”

“Right. Well. You’d better catch your train. And I’d better clear out of this hotel.”

“Hmm. Just a minute.” Rarity dug in her saddlebags and brought out the last of the gems and bits. “Take these. You’ll get one more night, I think, and maybe some dinner.”

Spike stepped up and took them with a nod. “Thanks.”

Rarity pulled him into a hug. “Be careful. And come back and to Ponyville soon. We need to get ready to move to Canterlot.”

Spike let her go. “You’re going to live in the dormitory now, right? I don’t think you’ll be able to sneak me in.”

“No, no, I’m sure we can work something out,” Rarity insisted. “You could… Um… Well I could find you, uh…”

Spike shook his head. “I don’t think anything’s going to work.”

“Well maybe you could stay in Ponyville and live with Zecora,” Rarity compromised. “And you can come and visit me on weekends and we’ll…”

“Go on adventures?” Spike finished. He shrugged.

Rarity frowned in frustration. “Well… Well I’ll work something out. We’ve got a whole week before the move and I will find a way to make this work.”

Spike let her have her moment. “Yeah. Okay.”

Rarity carefully eyed his armband. “Do you need me to recharge that?”

Spike shook his head. “Seems to have enough power.”

They both silently agreed to gloss over the implications.

“Do take care of that once you’re back home,” Rarity said. “I expect to see you there by tomorrow. Or write ahead if you’re going to be late. I will not stand for rudeness.”

“Will do.”

“And be careful.” She poked him in the chest.

“I’ll try.”

Then she gathered up her suitcase and her saddlebags, finally passing him the room key.

“Well…” Rarity nodded tentatively to the door.

Spike nodded. “Goodbye.”

She frowned. “See you later,” she reminded him.

“Right,” he said. “See you later.”

Then she opened the door and left him alone in the hotel room.

The sun went down.

Spike managed to pay for one more night’s use of the room but he’d have to clear out the next morning. He didn’t know what would happen in the next several hours. He might need the room… he might not. Right now he only needed his armband and what supplies he had in his backpack.

Four foal-sized socks to silence his step, and a foal-sized dark cloak. Cheap material but it only needed to last for tonight. He had purchased these with the last of the money. Spike had also collected a fist-full of pebbles in case he needed to—heck—throw pebbles or something.

The final item in the bag was the orange potion from Zecora. It had a note tied around it with her neatly written instructions for use.

Apply to the enchanted site.

It’s made to burn. Beware, it might.

It’s more than pony folk can bear.

But you should be fine, as you’re aware.

Spike frowned at it, feeling pretty sure that safety instructions shouldn’t read like a riddle. But he got the gist of the information. Or at least, he hoped he did.

With his kit put together at last and the night rolling in over Canterlot, Spike changed his disguise to that of the green and purple colt, put on his pony socks and cloak, and made stealthily for the Canterlot palace.

And Twilight.

The first thing Spike became aware of was the invisible magic barrier around the palace grounds. However, he was not sure how he was aware of it. Typically only unicorns were sensitive to magic, unless it was very strong magic and in close proximity. He supposed it could be a very powerful spell, bleeding magic vibes all over the area. But making the spell invisible seemed to Spike like an act of stealth. It didn’t make sense.

Yet, clearly, when Spike approached the palace walls he felt a strange warning tickle run through his body. He backed off and tried another part of the wall. Same again. It seemed to be all the way around. Gradually Spike realised that the part of him that was warning him about the spell was not actually a part of him. At least, not originally.

It was the changeling armband again, reacting to the magical barrier that encircled the Canterlot palace. Well, well. Spike wasn’t very good at interpreting magical vibes or auras or sensations, but the armband seemed to indicate that messing with the barrier would be very bad for the both of them. It communicated this more clearly—as Spike reached out a hoof towards the wall—by changing from a tickling sensation to a hot buzzing shock.

Spike pulled himself back at once. And he hadn’t even touched the wall. He looked down at his hoof and then looked up at the wall again. This spell was familiar to him. Only it had been much more painful the first time he had encountered it. Spike was no trained unicorn wizard but he was almost one hundred percent sure that this was the spell that had attacked him when he had tried to send that letter to Celestia before. The letter must have hit this barrier and Spike had felt the magical backlash instead of just having his letter returned.

He shuddered at the memory. But why was this here now? Sure, the palace and its grounds had always been restricted from the general public, and there had always been some measure of security, but never like this before. And never so secretively. What exactly was Celestia trying to keep out?

Well shoot. Spike had been hoping to slip through the bars of the gates or climb over the walls or something. Finding Twilight should be fairly easy after that. He was fairly familiar with the palace layout; even the unconventional ways to get around. Sure, it was a big palace—but there were only a few dozen rooms that Celestia could repurpose for this kind of thing. And if he needed to, he could check the guard roster in their locker room; maybe there’d be some clues there.

But all of that would have to wait until after he found a way past the surprise magical barrier. Just great. Spike sighed. It was going to be a long night.

He paced the perimeter of the palace, keeping to the shadows, hidden by his dark cloak. After almost an hour of snooping he saw two palace guards pulling an empty cart, so he followed them.

“What a month,” the mare huffed. “Bring this, bring that, now take it back, now get something else.”

“I could report you for insubordination, you know,” the stallion said.

“Oh yeah? And then who would you talk to?”

“Good point.”

She grunted. “I’m just saying, if we’re going to go all around Canterlot in the middle of the night collecting cakes and stuff, then the least she could do is actually use them for something. But no! We just take them back out and throw them in the trash a few days later. What a waste.”

“Hey, I heard there was something weird going on with cakes yesterday,” the stallion said.

“Like what?”

“Not sure. I was told that I didn’t need to know.”

The mare gave a slight chuckle. “I’m sure we can get Shining Armor to tell us, eh? He’s real close with Celestia’s ward—or niece or whoever she is.”

“I was told I didn’t need to know about that either,” the stallion said.

“Come on. We’ll wring the info out of him tomorrow.”

“Cut the guy some slack. His sister’s going through some stuff.”

“Ugh. Glad I’m not the one who has that night shift. You know she’s started throwing things now?”

Spike listened eagerly to their conversation with his heart pounding in his ears. By now the two guards had reached their destination—a scrap yard. They lit their horns and started loading big twisted pieces of scrap metal into the cart.

“This has got to be the weirdest one yet,” the mare said.

“I still think a box of party string was the weirdest one,” the stallion said.

“I didn’t hear about that.”

“No, that was a different guy. But whatever Celestia wanted it for she must have changed her mind because she was apparently pretty angry about it later.”

“Weird,” the mare grunted.

Spike put a plan together in his mind. He scanned the scrap yard until he noticed a broken old bathtub teetering precariously on a pile of junk a little further away. It was a safe distance, but close enough. From his hiding place behind a pair of trees he reached into his backpack and took out a peddle and heaved it through the air.

…or at least, attempted to.

The pebble slipped right out of his hoof and landed softly in the dirt.

Spike glared at it and then at his own hooves. He took the sock off one foreleg and with a flash of green magic he returned to his normal dragon self.

Metal scraped over by the cart. “What was that?” the stallion asked.

“You, you klutz,” the mare replied.

“No, I got a weird shiver,” he said.

“Yeah. From you scratching the metal.”

The guards went back to their task and Spike managed to throw the pebble this time. It sailed through the air and struck the dangerously positioned old bathtub. The heaped pile of junk swayed, tilted and then suddenly crashed over on the rest of the scrap yard.

“Blood of Celestia!” the mare swore, flinching back.

The stallion instinctively threw up a shield in front of them, casting the area in the dim glow of his magic.

“Ack!” the mare put a foreleg over her eyes. “Cut that out you idiot!”

Spike had to move now. He scurried up to the cart and climbed in, nestling down with the scrap metal and hoping that dragons really could be comfortable on anything. A bit of metal jabbed him in the leg. It was not comfortable, but his scales resisted the sharp edges. He huddled down under his cloak and tried to curl up as small as possible.

“Sorry.” The stallion lowered his shield and shivered.

The mare growled at him. “It’s just a bunch of junk tipping over.”

“Well I know that now. What if a bit had hit us though?”

“Ugh. This place is a hazard. I hope we get danger money for this or something.”

More grumbles were had and more bits of metal were hefted onto the cart.

“I think we’ve scooped up a bit of old cloth here,” the stallion said, peering into the wagon.

“Leave it,” the mare yawned. “The dungeon guards will sort it out at the other end. Let’s go.”

And with that the cart trundled on its way back towards the palace gates.