Radio Station Dilemmas

Chapter 4

  “Azura, Azura, can you hear me?” asked a familiar and caring voice.

Azura grunted and didn’t want to wake up. Her head throbbed and Azura felt she had just suffered a hard knock and couldn’t remember how it happened.

“It’s me, Spike,” Spike said gently.

Azura sighed a little in happiness as she felt Spike claws rub up and down her forehead. It even seemed to help soothe her mental agony. Spike seemed to know where to rub and how hard.

“Thank goodness, I was beginning to think you were going to be passed out for ages,” Spike said in relief and then he rubbed a little harder and Azura reluctantly opened her eyes.

“So, Azura, things seem screwy around here and I need your help, something’s definitely up with Twilight and I couldn’t convince Rarity to help me wake you,” Spike said in a somewhat puzzled, but suspicious tone.

Azura gazed toward Spike and saw his pleading green eyes.

“Come on, Azura, get back onto your feet, I really need your help,” Spike tried to encourage Azura onto her feet.

“You see after I left Discord’s office, I began to suffer from mental strains and things that didn’t quite make sense. I thought about knocking myself out, but then I had a thought that reminded me Twilight was my friend and Rarity was too…” Spike continued.

Azura clambered onto her feet and wondered where Spike was going with his words. She still felt a bit wobbly on her feet and she decided to just hear Spike out.

“And four other ponies were my friends too, and I think their names were Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash and when I searched my locker as I tried to make sense out of the thought, I found this,” Spike said and flashed an old photo of six ponies smiling and appearing to be happy in each other’s company.

Azura gazed at the photo and thought she could recognise Twilight and Rarity through their similar mane styles, but in the photo, both had coloured fur and eyes. Twilight had a mulberry fur coat and a sapphire blue mane and a moderate rose and a violet streak and Rarity had a magnificent well-groomed white coat and a well-styled indigo mane. Plus, in the photo, Twilight had violet eyes and Rarity had blue eyes, but Azura thought they both had grey dull eyes.

“Where did you get this photo?” Azura asked as she couldn’t understand why the photo showed colour on both Twilight’s and Rarity’s fur and in their eyes.

“I told you, in my locker, remember, it was buried under a bunch of stuff though and neglected like it had been there for a while,” Spike frowned as Azura noticed he appeared unhappy about neglecting the photo.

“How do you know it’s real?” Azura asked as it crossed her mind that it could be fake.

“A strong feeling in my gut says it’s real and strangely after I picked up the photo, I remembered I was the one who snapped it and so it has to be real,” Spike stated.

Azura noticed Spike’s green eyes appeared very sure and there wasn’t any doubt in his voice either.

“Okay, how can I help?” Azura asked as she noted Spike hadn’t told her what he wanted help with.

“I’ve just got a feeling that Discord has done something to change mine and our friends and I need your help to find them and then find out what happened to change them,” Spike stated boldly.

Azura noted his boldness sounded like he was giving her a mission.

“First, I think we need to find Fluttershy, she’s this Pegasus in the picture,” Spike pointed to a yellow Pegasus with overflowing pink mane who seemed to be the only one in the photo to be a little shy about being part of the photo. She was smiling like every pony else, but her stance suggested she was a little nervous.

“Any idea where she is?” Azura asked Spike.

“Nope,” Spike said bluntly, “But we can cover more ground between us if we work together.”

“Okay, I’ll take second and you take first,” Azura said as she looked into Spike’s determined green eyes and decided to help him.

“It’s most likely that’s she’s on the third floor since I seem to remember Discord had a special affinity for her, but we should still search the other floors to eliminate possibilities, so I’ll check first,” Spike stated like he was giving orders.

“Okay, I check this floor then,” Azura nodded and she actually felt she was part of some type of mission.

“I just don’t recommend you bother Rarity as when I asked her to help you out, she told me she doesn’t know you and I was a bother to her. She got really mean, so I would avoid her if I was you,” Spike warned and ran towards the stairs.

Azura watched Spike open the door and go down the stairs, but thought that surely Rarity would remember her. Azura recalled they had both helped Spike up the stairs with the paper work and before that Rarity had even opened the door for her and seemed to have been happy and friendly. But then, Azura thought her memory seemed a bit hazy and foggy and she couldn’t quite recollect what happened, but decided to check Spike’s story out for herself and trotted back to the record filing room and opened the door.

“I told you to go away, I’m much too busy earning my gem to be hassled by the likes of you!” Rarity snapped as the door creaked open.

Azura stood in horror as she saw Rarity was covered in grey fur. Then, Rarity turned her head and Azura saw her dull grey eyes.

“Oh, it’s you, I thought it was that pesky, annoying little dragon who was getting on my nerves! Still, I hope you realise just how late you are, I’m definitely going to report you to Discord,” Rarity said in anti-social manner and Azura noticed an intense scowl, but she didn’t want to believe what she was seeing.

“Rarity, it’s me, Azura, don’t you remember we helped Spike together?” Azura tried and trotted into the room, hoping that Rarity would recognise her.

“Who’s Spike? And I don’t care what your name is, especially when you’re speaking utter balderdash as I remember no such thing. You better get back to your post before you lose a whole day’s worth of wages,” Rarity stated bluntly and pointed her hoof over to a stack of records.

Azura sobbed a little as she saw Rarity had become completely anti-social and Rarity continued to point her hoof out until Azura reluctantly trotted toward the records and then Rarity turned and got back to work.

From her encounter with Rarity, Azura felt more certain Spike was definitely right about something screwy going on. Azura could remember the colourful Rarity had smiled at her and she had thought could be friends after they had helped Spike together.

“I’ll find a way to help you,” Azura mumbled as she wanted to be sure the grey and anti-social Rarity didn’t hear her and crept back at the room. Azura decided she would help Spike find Fluttershy and find out just exactly what was going on….