All the Shining Stars

Chapter 4

An Unfortunate Encounter

As I awoke, I nearly had to force myself to get up and go down the long staircase. I was still exhausted from the test. It was only until I reached the bottom of the stairs that I realized I hadn’t had any dreams. I would be glad if they were gone, but the true cause was probably just pure fatigue pushing me to a state past dreaming. Those dreams I kept having were almost starting to scare me. A lot of them were just about ruthless power and malice. I may be a bit cynical at times, but I wasn’t evil.

Stumbling down the dimly torch-lit hallway to the library, I remembered I was supposed to let Harry in from the front. There were enchantments put on it at night that were essentially a super-powered lock. Once I got to the door, I opened it a bit, just to see that he hadn’t bailed on us. Sure enough, sitting against the wall in a rough linen cloak was Harry.

“Psst! Harry! Quickly, get in here before anypony sees you.” I whisper, beckoning for him to come inside. Harry snuck over to the door and entered the main hall.

“Alright, we have to get to the library now. Just follow me.” I started trotting back down the hall. I turned around to check that he was following me, only to find that he was standing open-mouthed at the room. Hasn’t he even seen the inside of the school yet? Facehoofing, I tug on his cloak a bit with a manipulation spell to get him moving. This seems to get his focus again.

“Sorry, it’s just... I never actually got the chance to come in here. Everything looks so... magical, you could say.”

“Alright, but remember, we have a job to complete here.”

“Okay, got it. Time to focus on the task at hand.”

With that sorted out, we finally walked down the hall and turned into the Great Library. It was called the Great Library because it had the largest collection of books in all of Equestria, and probably the whole of the known world. It was a giant, vaulted chamber with nearly four floors of bookshelves covered in all sorts of magical tomes, scrolls, and spellbooks. There were so many that you could find stacks of books lying on the floor here, or a pile of scrolls there, too.

At the back of the room stood a clearly impatient Morning Star.

“Where have you been? I’ve been sitting here for nearly an hour!”

“Sorry, I took a nap and I guess I slept in a bit.” I said scratching the back of my head absentmindedly.

“Well, as long as you’re here. And who’s that? I haven’t seen him at the school. Is he new? Why is he here?”

“Relax, this is Harry, I met him and his father yesterday.”
I went about explaining the whole incident with waking up and meeting his father, finding out that Harry hadn’t been accepted into the school, telling Harry about their plan, and ending with meeting him at the front gate. Morning Star looked a little relieved.

“Well as long as he doesn’t put us at risk, he can come along.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Harry spoke up. “I won’t slow you down at all. I can also set up a pretty good campsite.”

“Okay, fair enough. Now, I think It’s time I explain the plan to you two.” She had a brilliant glint in her eye. Flipping open her saddlebags that had been set on the table, she takes out an unrolls a map of Canterlot and the surrounding area. Upon closer inspection, it had patrol routes with carefully scribbled times attached to each them.

“I did some thorough snooping through the guards quarters and I found some patrol routes. We’re going to have to plan around these if we’re going to get out of here.”

“Why can’t we just walk out? Wouldn’t they have to let us?” Harry questioned.

“Well, since me and Storm are students, we’re technically supposed to remain on the grounds at all times. That wouldn’t fly well with the guards at the gate. And besides, getting out the ninja way would be much more fun.” She said this with an added grin.

“Okay, I can’t argue with that.”

“Well, have you figured something out? We can’t go out without a solid plan.” I said, bringing us back on topic.

“Why, yes, in fact I have. You see, there is a gap in the patrols right here-” She points her hoof to a street just a few blocks away from the school. “and if we could get through there, we would be free to go through this gate-” She again points to the map at a secondary gate on the side of the walls. “that surprisingly enough, isn’t guarded at night. They really need to fix that...”

“Well let’s hope they don’t fix it tonight. How are we going to get through the gate though? Wouldn’t they still lock it?” I said.

“Remember that wall-phasing spell you learned?”

“Oh yeah, that spell.”

“If you could teach it to us, we could get out the gate that way.”
Harry looked confused.

“Wait, if you know a wall-phasing spell, why couldn’t we just phase through the walls themselves?

“Well pretty much everywhere else on the wall has guards, and the spell only works on thin walls, or in this case, thin gates.” I explained to him.

“Okay, that makes a bit more sense. Well, I’m ready when you two are.”

“Ready!” I said, confident that we could pull this off.

“Just one moment, let me get a couple things...” Morning Star said as she levitated a couple books into her saddlebags.

“Alright, we’ll meet you by the front doors.”
Me and Harry bolted for the doors in our excitement.

A few minutes later, Morning Star emerged from the library. Her bags appeared to have been stuffed with books.

“Why are you bringing so many books?” I asked her.

“Well, you never know when one might need some reading material.” She teetered a bit, off balance from all the “reading material.”

“Here, let me help you with those.” I started to levitate some of the books out of her saddlebags to put them into mine, but she began pulling one of them back.

“N-no, no, not that one...” She said, blushing slightly. “Here, you can take these ones instead.” She brought out a couple of replacement books and put the one she had taken from me back into her bags.

“Ooookaaay... Fine with me.” I said, shrugging it off. It was probably some embarrassing romance novel or something.

“Alright, Now I’m ready.” She looked a bit more stable now.

We all walked to the doors, making sure to check that there wasn’t anypony watching us. Cracking open the door ever so slightly, I scanned the front courtyard; Still no guards.

“Okay, we’re going to need to stay silent from here on until we get out of the city. We can’t risk getting caught.” I cautioned them. They nodded in approval, ready to get going. I opened the door further, just enough so we could slip out. We stepped out into the crisp night air. It was a chilly night, but a clear one nonetheless. The moon was a full one, shining brightly in the sky. I took a moment so as to appraise Celestia’s work. Taking a deep breath, I snuck towards the courtyard, Morning Star and Harry following closely behind.

“I think you should take point, Morning Star, you are the one with the patrol routes, after all.” I whispered back to her.

“Good idea. You two follow my lead.” We both nodded our affirmation.

Continuing along the agreed path, we had next to no trouble. Morning Star’s mane got caught in a bush at one point, but that was fixed in seconds. We had finally reached the alleyway where there weren’t any guards posted and had decided to take a quick break and make sure we knew the rest of the trail. Morning Star had her map out again.

“Okay, it looks like we’re in the clear. If we can just make it to the gate without being noticed, then we should be out in a matter of minutes.” She said in a hushed tone.

“Sounds like a plan. Let’s go,” I said, getting back up. Just as we were preparing to set out again, we heard something.

“...And so I said, ‘Why don’t you just go ahead and do it, then?’ And of course he said that he couldn’t because he was ‘busy.’ That doesn’t make up for anything!”

“What makes you so sure he wasn’t busy? He might have something important going on.”

“So you’re saying that you believe him? I don’t accept on bit of it!”
Morning Star looked at my sidelong with a worried expression. There were two guards on the street just next to us.

“Well, I’ll just stay out of this then.” The guards continued talking. “I can tell that you probably have some grudge with him.”

“Alright, suit yourself.” He took a moment and looked up at the moon. “Hey, we should get headed to the auxiliary gate. It’s almost time for our shift.”

“I hear you on that one. Cap’n can get pretty rough.”

“Psh, you haven’t seen the half of it.”

The guards walked on, continuing to chat, but there was only one thing we were concerned about.

“He said auxiliary gate. Do you think he means the side gate?” I said nervously.

“I think he might have. Let’s hope for the best though. If there are guards posted there, then there’s a big chance we could be spotted.” Morning Star had a worried look in her eyes and both knew our chances of escaping had decreased drastically.

“Well, we can’t just stop here. Let’s keep going.” Harry said determinedly. “There has to be another way.
Morning Star turned towards him. “I went and checked all the walls myself, there’s no other way out unless you both fancy getting caught.”

“Well don’t either of you know some sort of cloaking spell? Long range teleportation? Anything? You two are students of Starswirl the Bearded for Celestia’s sake!” It was obvious he was frustrated with the situation.

“Well I guess there is one thing.” Morning Star recalled.

“What is it?”

“We did learn a couple offensive spells, one of which is a stunning spell. If me and Storm Runner could hit the guards, we could still escape without having to harm anypony.”

“I’m not sure how well that would work out, Starry,” She raised her eyebrow a bit at my nickname for her. “my eyesight isn’t all that good, and I never got any glasses. I’m not sure I’d be able to hit the guard. And besides, what if there’s more than two guards?”
Harry stamped his hoof in frustration, getting a “Shhh!” from Morning Star. “Well can’t you just teach me the spell or something?”

“No, I’m afraid not. We can’t risk getting caught from firing off the spell without hitting any guards.”

“Well Storm, can’t you just borrow Starry’s-” Morning Star sighs at that name again. “Can’t you just borrow her glasses or something?”

“You know, there’s a reason I have glasses in the first place. My vision is probably just as bad if not worse than his.”

“Well can’t you at least just try to hit the guard, Storm?”

“I can give it my all, but I can’t guarantee that I’ll hit him.”

“Well, we have to try.” Harry said, Placing his hoof on my shoulder. I nodded in agreement.

“Well then, what are we waiting for? Let’s go stun some guards.” Morning Star said with a grin on her face. I smiled a bit; she seemed to almost be having fun with this.

The three of us snuck out of the alley, Starry taking point, Harry in the middle, and me bringing up the rear. We couldn’t see the gate just yet, but we were close according to the map. We took it slowly down the street, sticking close to the alleys and keeping a lookout for any more patrols that might be passing by. As soon as we reached the next crossroads, the gate was within view, and sure enough, there were guards sitting atop it.

Luckily, there seemed to be only two; the two that passed by us when we were in the alley. I gave a brief sigh of relief and then realised that this probably wasn’t the best idea. I couldn’t aim worth anything with my eyesight, especially at this range. We were about three hundred feet away from the gate, and we couldn’t really risk getting any closer because there weren’t any buildings to cover us. Morning Star gave some hoof signals, but neither me nor Harry could understand her. She gave an exasperated eye-roll and whispered to us.

“I’m going to go to the other side of the street and take cover so both of us can see our targets better. I’ll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left. Fire on my signal. Got it?” I nodded. “Good.”
She kept low to the ground as she slowly made her way to the other side of the street. She seemed to have a bit more experience with sneaking than I thought. She kept with the shadows well to make sure she wasn’t seen. Once she was close to the other side of the street, she tucked in her head and shoulder and did a graceful roll to the other building.

Once she was in place, she checked to make sure I was ready. I nodded again and her horn started to glow faintly with a light red aura. She raised her hoof, signalling for me to get my spell ready. My horn, too, started to light up with its same pale yellow light and I kept an eye on Starry, getting ready for the signal. She motioned once. I squinted hard at our targets. Twice. Our horns started to glow more brightly. Three times. A golden beam of light shot out of my horn and a rose red beam out of Morning Star’s. Her spell hit the target first, the guard instantly slumping the ground, spear clattering to the cobblestones.

My spell... didn’t do as well. It went flying past the other guards head, giving him a good scare, but not the stun I was hoping for. I fired off another one, hoping that I could hit him on the second go, but I missed. It was too late. He alerted the other guards.

“SOUND THE ALARMS! WE’RE UNDER ATTA-” Was all he could get out before Morning Star blasted him in the side with her spell.

“Wow. That was some aim, Storm Runner.”

“Hey, I told you my aim sucked!”

“Well, we can’t just stand around. No doubt some guards heard that.”
Sure enough, there were already some guards galloping to the origin of the alarm.

“Now you’ve done it Storm.” Morning Star said.

“Hey, we can still get out of here! We just need to get past some of these guards.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Harry said, bolting for the gates.

Just as we were about to get our spells ready, three guards slammed to the ground in front of us. Morning Star had the reflexes to blast one of them with a stun, but then the guards put up defensive barriers.

“Stop right there, criminal scum!” One of the guards said enthusiastically. “We’ve got you surrounded!” He was right. As we glanced behind us, we saw there were five other guards, each with their own defensive spell put up preemptively. We were trapped.

“Excuse me, but could you move? We have somewhere to be.” I said without emotion.

“The only place you need to be is in the stocks. You’re coming with us.” One of the guards said, reaching for me. His hoof hit another barrier, this one coming from me.

“I said move.” I shut my eyes in frustration.

“Ha! You don’t scare me. Now come quietly or I’ll be forced to lock you.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.” I said, my voice taking on a slightly deeper tone. I opened my eyes, but they were glowing pure white. The guard flinched back a bit.

“A-Alright... Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” He prepared the spell, but as soon as he fired it, it fizzled into static once it got near me.

“Oh, well that’s not very nice.” I said, an evil grin growing on my face. Morning Star elbowed me.

“What are you doing? We’ve been caught, don’t try and resist. It’ll just make things worse.” I shoved her away.

“Don’t touch me!” I growled at her.

“Storm Runner?” She said with a worried tone.

“Now, move.” I said, once again turning to the guards. They said nothing in reply and just readied their spears.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to play with sharp objects?” I said, levitating their spears straight out of their own spells, hurling them over the wall. They just stared at me, shocked.

“Oh, staring is rude, don’t you know?” My mouth curled into a cruel smile. My horn glew with energy and a lightning bolt screeched from the sizzling field around me, hitting one of the guards dead on. He flew backwards, slamming against the wall, giving a crack of his skull against the stones. One of the other guards went to check on him. I turned to look at my companions.

“You two might want to run before you get hurt,” I said with a comically evil tone. All they did was stare at me before they ran for the doors. Morning Star helped Harry phase through before doing so herself. I took that as the go ahead.

“Oh, I hope you don’t expect me to... what was it... come quietly?” I said.
Then I blacked out.